How Amazon disaster relief hubs provide assistance across the world

Key takeaways

Amazon operates 15 Disaster Relief hubs around the globe.
They’re located across six countries near disaster-prone areas to deliver relief to communities within hours of a hurricane, wildfire, or other disaster.
The hubs are stocked with tarps, diapers, and other emergency supplies, which are donated and delivered to Amazon’s relief partners, including the American Red Cross, when disasters strike.

Inside a massive warehouse near Atlanta, Georgia, rows of shelves are stacked from the floor to the ceiling with pallets tightly sealed in color-coded plastic. Each pallet contains emergency supplies that nonprofits like the American Red Cross and World Central Kitchen will need if a disaster strikes.

Within minutes, the pallets are ready to be carried off by forklifts and loaded into huge cargo planes or semi-trailer trucks.

That’s exactly what happened when hurricanes Helene and Milton hit multiple states across the U.S. Southeast; when flash floods swept across central Texas. Amazon’s Disaster Relief hub near Atlanta is stocked with enough supplies to fill three Amazon Air 767 cargo planes at a moment’s notice—or 1.4 million items. Since it launched in 2021, the Atlanta hub has supported dozens of disaster responses.

The hub is one of 15 strategically located around the world. They harness the power of Amazon’s delivery and logistics, enabling donated items from Amazon to reach frontline nonprofits on the ground within hours of a disaster.

Here’s everything you need to know about Amazon’s Disaster Relief hubs:

How do Amazon’s Disaster Relief hubs work?

A fleet of trucks are ready to go to disaster-affected communities from Amazon’s Disaster Relief hub near Atlanta, Georgia.

Amazon’s Disaster Relief hubs repurpose existing Amazon infrastructure to support organizations that don’t have Amazon’s product, storage, and delivery capabilities. Our partnerships enable nonprofits and first responders to focus on their lifesaving missions, while Amazon takes care of getting the right supplies at the right time to the right locations.

Our Disaster Relief team, which works year-round to help communities impacted by disasters, listens to what partners need and reviews data from past relief efforts to ensure the highest-demand items are ready to go from the closest hub before a disaster strikes.

“While every disaster is different, we now have a better understanding of which items communities will need most when certain disasters strike,” said Abe Diaz, Amazon’s head of disaster relief. “We work with our relief partners to pre-pack items so they’re ready before they even need them.”

Where are Amazon’s Disaster Relief hubs located?

Warehouse workers in safety vests handling pallets of supplies

Amazon operates Disaster Relief hubs within our existing warehouses in Australia, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, and the U.S. Amazon’s relief hubs are located near disaster-prone regions near major cities and transportation networks, enabling Amazon to deliver emergency supplies to impacted communities within hours of a relief partner’s request.

Since Amazon launched our Disaster Relief program in 2017, we have donated and delivered more than 26 million relief items to support communities affected by 200 natural disasters around the world.

“Thanks to our hubs, Amazon can respond to community needs twice as fast as we did before, and my team continues to constantly evolve and innovate to help where and when it’s needed most,” said Diaz, who grew up in Puerto Rico and switched his role from Prime Video to full-time disaster relief after he volunteered to help during Amazon’s Hurricane Maria recovery efforts.

What's inside Amazon's Disaster Relief hubs?

American Red Cross buckets with cleaning supplies for disaster relief

Each hub houses products that first responders and communities need in the aftermath of natural disasters in their region, such as tarps, medical supplies, cleaning products, water filtration systems, solar-powered lights, and more.

Disaster relief kits are created to meet the specific needs of Amazon’s community partners. Red Cross volunteers, for example, are often the first to arrive on the ground after a disaster, so one pallet in Amazon’s relief hub near Atlanta contains essentials they need to set up a mobile office inside a shelter, including a printer and a power source. In Australia, Disaster Relief hubs are equipped with snake bite kits.

Here is a closer look at three commonly needed disaster relief kits, which Amazon donates and delivers to our community partners.

Muck-and-gut kits

After a flood, many homes need to be completed gutted before anyone can safely live there again. Homeowners must act fast to prevent the spread of dangerous mold, and this often involves the labor-intensive process of removing water-damaged dry wall, insulation, and electrical fixtures—referred to as “mucking and gutting.”

Amazon has donated and delivered thousands of “muck and gut” kits from our hubs to our nonprofit partners. Our partners help homeowners who might not have flood insurance or enough time to outsource the job. Muck-and-gut kits typically contain buckets, rubber gloves, trash bags, shovels, brooms, mops, coveralls, googles, and respirator masks.

When the Guadalupe River in central Texas rose more than 26 feet in 45 minutes over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, Amazon’s hub near Atlanta sprang into action. Among the 155,000 items Amazon donated for relief were over 23,000 supplies for “muck and gut kits.”

"This is what meaningful collaboration looks like—meeting urgent needs with speed, compassion, and purpose," one of Amazon’s longtime partners in relief, Good360, shared.

Hygiene kits

After the central Texas floods, Angel Poorman, the co-founder of the Texas-based nonprofit United Rescue Alliance, served on the front lines. She vividly remembers one woman who arrived in her truck, which was all she had left after the floods destroyed her home, to pick up a hygiene kit.

“Being able to brush your teeth and wash your hair, it brings dignity and honor. It lets someone know they are seen, they are known, and they are loved,” explained Poorman.

Amazon donated 16,000 hygiene kits from our hub near Atlanta after the central Texas floods. The kits have been part of dozens of Amazon disaster responses, including efforts to support Ukrainian refugees and flood survivors in central and eastern Europe. Hygiene kits typically contain: combs, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, shampoo, and loofahs.

Hundreds of Amazon employees come together every year at locations around the world to assemble the kits into ready-to-go biodegradable bags. Importantly, the soap inside the kits is vegan and alcohol-free to meet halal religious and ethical standards.

Sensory kits

For children with autism spectrum disorder prone to overstimulation, staying in a shelter after a disaster can be particularly stressful. A partnership between Amazon and the Red Cross to create “sensory kits” is making a difference.

The kit includes a backpack with noise-cancelling headphones, a weighted blanket, and squishy stress toys inside to help kids stay calm at shelters.

Over the life of the partnership, Amazon has provided more than 600 sensory kits to the Red Cross and stands ready to supply more as they’re needed. This unique initiative showcases the power of partnerships to meet specific needs after disasters strike.

How has Amazon Disaster Relief helped communities around the world?

In the past 24 months, Amazon Disaster Relief responded to flooding in Spain and across Central and Eastern Europe; wildfires in California, Chile, Colombia, Australia, and Hawaii; earthquakes in Japan, Turkey, Syria, and Morocco; and hurricanes and cyclones in Florida, India, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.

Since 2017, Amazon has donated and delivered more than 26 million relief items to support communities affected by 200 natural disasters around the world.

How Amazon’s Disaster Relief hubs help communities when every minute counts

Key takeaways

How do Amazon’s Disaster Relief hubs work?

Where are Amazon’s Disaster Relief hubs located?