With thousands of residents displaced by Hurricane Harvey in need of food and water, beer maker Anheuser-Busch has announced it is shipping emergency water to victims of the natural disaster.
As of Monday, Anheuser-Busch — maker of popular beers like Budweiser, Bud Light, Shock Top, and Rolling Rock — had sent three truckloads with more than 155,000 cans of drinking water to areas affected by Harvey, which has brought historic flooding that is wreaking havoc on southeast Texas.
The first was sent to the American Red Cross in Baton Rouge, La. and two more truckloads were headed toward another Red Cross location in Arlington, TX.
Anheuser-Busch said in a statement that its Cartersville, Ga. brewery regularly stops production to help out during emergencies like Harvey. Last year, for instance, it sent emergency drinking water to communities affected by California’s wildfires, floods in Louisiana, and Hurricane Matthew, which made landfall in South Carolina.
Anheuser-Busch’s own property was in the path of the storm — it has three facilities in the hard-hit Houston including a large brewery, its craft partner Karbach, and a glass bottle factory. The roughly 1,100 people who work at the locations were safe as of Monday, the company said.
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“This clean, safe emergency drinking water was already canned and ready to be shipped when the Red Cross issued an urgent request to support communities hit by Hurricane Harvey,” the company said.
Another beer marker, MillerCoors, said it sent 50,000 cans of drinking water to Texas, where they’ll be distributed to the Red Cross.
Drinking water is a vital need of Hurricane Harvey victims, but meeting this demand has not been without controversy. Best Buy apologized on Tuesday after a viral photo taken at one of its Houston stores showed a case of water priced at $42 during Hurricane Harvey.
Since Hurricane Harvey made landfall on Friday, records amount of rain have hit the southeast Texas, causing billions of dollars in damage. On Tuesday, its destructive path spread into Louisiana.
