MIAMI (AP) – Maya Kogul was in California when Hurricane Irma began twirling toward Florida. She knew stores would run out of key supplies before she got back to her downtown Miami home earlier this week, so she placed an order for three cases of water through a Nestle water delivery company. She waited and waited, but the order didn’t come.
More than 50 Floridians told The Associated Press that they did not receive flashlights, battery-operated radios, boxed milk, water bottles and first-aid kits after placing orders on Amazon.com and Nestle’s ReadyRefresh.
Amazon spokeswoman Amanda Ip said that deliveries were experiencing delays because of the weather conditions. ReadyRefresh posted an apology Friday on Twitter for service disruptions and delivery delays.
“It was frustrating having to run around last minute,” said Kogul, a 31-year-old mother of a 2-year-old girl. “By delivery date it was already evacuation time. By the time I realized I wasn’t getting the delivery, it was almost Thursday evening. I didn’t know they were not going to come.”
Several customers said that online retailers let them down at the worst possible moment and even before weather deteriorated. They said on Saturday that they received cancellation notifications only after evacuations had begun in their neighborhoods and markets’ shelves had emptied. Some had placed orders as early as Monday.