When Hurricane Melissa began moving toward Jamaica earlier this week, Amazon’s chief meteorologist was watching closely—not just for the company’s global shipping operations, but also to see how its disaster relief team might need to act.

“As soon as the hurricane formed, we had eyes on it,” says Abe Diaz, principal technical product manager for Amazon’s disaster relief team. “We’ve been tracking this for multiple days.”

Inside an Amazon fulfillment center near Atlanta, pallets are stacked with disaster relief supplies, from medical supplies to solar-powered lights. It’s one of 15 massive “disaster relief hubs” that the company has stationed inside warehouses around the world. In the wake of the record-breaking hurricane that hit Jamaica, with flooding and 185-mile-an-hour winds that des

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