SAN ANTONIO — Bracing for more COVID deaths, FEMA is sending five mortuary trucks to Texas. They will be housed in San Antonio.
Leaders said the request from the state is an indication of what’s to come. The number of people dying continues to rise. On Tuesday, six more deaths were reported in Bexar County and 96 were reported in Texas.
Jimmy Lucas is the President of the Texas Funeral Directors Association. He talks to directors of funeral homes across the state.
"We should be prepared for the worst," he said. "They're staying busy and seeing an uptick in COVID related deaths. Mortuary coolers are starting to sadly fill up again."
He said funeral homes are again preparing for more deaths, and they already have limited space to hold bodies.
"Our mortuary coolers range from three-to-ten," he said.
Recently, the state asked FEMA for five mortuary trucks as a precaution. Below is a statement that was sent to KENS 5 from the state.
DSHS submitted a Resource Request Form Aug. 4 through the Texas Division of Emergency Management to FEMA for five mortuary trailers as a precaution. They will be staged centrally in San Antonio in case any local jurisdictions around the state need this kind of support. None have requested it at this point. FEMA previously provided this resource for earlier increases in COVID-19 fatalities and has indicated they will be delivered in the next week to two weeks.
We don’t know of any place that needs these now due to COVID, but part of a response is being prepared for what could happen. Knowing that it takes a few weeks for these to arrive, the state wanted to go ahead and put the request in.
"I hope we don't have to use those trailers but the funeral professionals that I talked to today and the last week ---space is getting close to capacity again," Lucas said.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg reacted to the trucks being stationed in San Antonio, and what this means going forward.
"It says that the state expects that the amount of death that we are going to see is going to be so much," he said. "It is going to overwhelm our hospitals, that we are not going to be able to handle. Let that sink in for a minute.”
The state said the trucks could arrive as early as this week, or next week.
Currently, 1,413 patients infected with COVID-19 are hospitalized in the San Antonio area, the highest number of concurrent hospitalizations since January 21. 367 patients are in intensive care, as of Monday, August 16.
San Antonio leaders spoke to the dire conditions at area hospitals last week, during which they indicated the stress the most recent COVID-19 spike, fueled by cases of the highly contagious delta variant, has put on the city's emergency services. During a 23-minute span last week, the city was without available ambulances to answer emergency calls due to the influx of COVID responses needed.
San Antonio reported a seven-day average of 1,646 newly reported daily COVID cases on Monday, August 16.