Refrigerated trailers arrive in San Antonio to help overcrowded hospital morgues

BEXAR COUNTY, Tex. (Texas News Radio) — The City of San Antonio and Bexar County are bringing in refrigerated trailers to handle overcrowding in local hospital morgues and funeral homes.

“This is a morbid topic. And it’s not one that we enjoy talking about,” San Antonio Metro Health assistant director Mario Martinez said. “Local hospitals are experiencing a surge in deaths and that also means a surge on their morgue capacity.”

Martinez noted that funeral homes are also backlogged, causing a delay of getting bodies out of hospital morgues.

To help with that, the health department has two refrigerated trailers currently set up with three more ready to be operational by the end of the week.  Martinez said local hospitals are also ordering their own trailers in addition to what the city is bringing in.

Each trailer can hold 24 to 36 bodies.

The state of Texas reported 10,791 additional coronavirus cases Wednesday, for a total of 282,365 cases since the beginning of the pandemic — 129,657 of which are active.

Current active case count by county:

1. Harris 30,679
2. Dallas 15,554
3. Tarrant 9,180
4. Bexar 8,639
5. Nueces 5,694
6. Hidalgo 4,511
7. Galveston 4,281
8. El Paso 3,353
9. Fort Bend 3,087
10. Travis 2,891
11. Hays 2,888
12. Jefferson 2,569
13. Webb 2,029
14. Lubbock 1,938
15. Brazoria 1,847
16. Anderson 1,819
17. Denton 1,765
18. Bell 1,634
19. Cameron 1,469
20. Smith 1,140