Anheuser-Busch has sent more than 155,000 cans of emergency drinking water to Ohio and Washington as both states recover from severe August disasters. The brewer said Monday that more than 25,000 cans were delivered to central Ohio following severe flooding. Three days earlier, the company had announced that nearly 130,000 cans were sent across Washington State as communities responded to major wildfires. Both shipments came from Anheuser-Busch's Cartersville, Georgia, brewery, one of two company facilities, along with one in Fort Collins, Colorado, that periodically pause beer production to can emergency drinking water.
Ohio Flooding Creates Immediate Drinking Water Need
The Ohio shipment was routed through Anheuser-Busch wholesaler Matesich Distributing Co. in Newark, which worked with the American Red Cross to distribute the water to residents, first responders and organizations in affected areas. The donation follows a series of destructive storms that hit central Ohio beginning the week of August 11, bringing flooding, high winds and tornadoes across the region. Approximately 100,000 customers lost electricity following the storm, and Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther declared an emergency as officials assessed damage. Flooding was particularly severe in communities including Crooksville and Perry County, where residents were displaced and the Red Cross established shelter operations. Flooding can leave households without reliable access to potable water even after rescue operations end, while prolonged outages can further complicate operation of wells and other water infrastructure, which is what made the timing of the deliveries significant.
Washington Received Nearly Five Times as Much Water
Washington's shipment dwarfed Ohio's. The brewer sent nearly 130,000 cans to wholesaler King Beverage Inc. in Spokane for distribution with the American Red Cross, as communities began the longer recovery from destructive Spokane-area wildfires. The Spokane fires have destroyed more than 600 structures and forced the evacuation of roughly 5,000 homes, among the region's most consequential recent wildfire disasters. While the Washington and Ohio disasters had different causes and infrastructure impacts, both created the same immediate logistical requirement: getting safe drinking water into disrupted communities quickly, a need that echoes the broader operational strain natural catastrophes are placing on business continuity planning nationally.
Breweries Provide Manufacturing Capacity Before Disasters Occur
Anheuser-Busch's emergency water program is built around manufacturing capacity the company already operates. The Cartersville and Fort Collins breweries periodically halt normal beer production and package water specifically for disaster response, inventory that can then move through the company's existing wholesaler network rather than requiring a distribution system to be assembled after an emergency occurs, an approach consistent with how operators elsewhere are learning to treat spare capacity as a strategic asset rather than a cost to trim. The company traces its disaster-relief relationship with the American Red Cross to 1906 and formally established its emergency drinking-water program in 1988; since then, Anheuser-Busch and its wholesaler partners have distributed more than 100 million cans of drinking water to U.S. communities and volunteer fire departments, extending a longstanding corporate focus on water stewardship into disaster logistics.
For manufacturers evaluating their own disaster-response programs, the model is notable less for the donation itself than for the infrastructure behind it: production capacity, preexisting distribution partners, and a relief organization already positioned to move supplies the final mile. As extreme events place simultaneous demands on communities in different parts of the country, the ability to redirect existing industrial capacity quickly can determine how useful corporate disaster assistance actually becomes.
