Hidalgo County is asking the state for permission to once again use a refrigerated trailer that holds bodies as COVID-19 deaths continue to mount.
Ricardo Saldaña, Hidalgo County Emergency Management Coordinator, said he asked the Texas Division of Emergency Management to reactivate a refrigerated truck earlier this week following warnings from local funeral homes and crematories.
“They’re starting to see an increase in fatalities regarding COVID and they wanted to make sure we had them early on and not wait until we had a situation like last year, where we had to request them and we had to wait,” Saldaña said Friday. “This time we wanted to get them here early on — at least one trailer — to help us support the issue should we get overwhelmed.”
Jimmy Lucas, president of the Texas Funeral Directors Association, said the truck that was brought in last year when COVID-19 deaths surged locally was kept here.
“We have four state trailers that Texas Funeral Director Association has helped manage for the state, and the one that’s in Hidalgo (County) has been there for a year,” he said, noting it hasn’t been in use for almost a year. “We left that trailer down there staged so that if we needed it again we wouldn’t have to transport it. And so they requested to reactive that trailer.”
The state asked the county to submit data that Saldaña said is currently being collected from funeral homes.
Both he and Lucas believe the request will be granted next week.
“Up in Florida they’re already having a surge. So we’re trying to get ahead of the game,” Saldaña said.
There have been 149 COVID-19 deaths reported in Hidalgo County this month. The truck can hold between 20 to 30 bodies, depending on space, Lucas said.
