Thread by @TexasTribune

1/ In South Texas, funeral homes have set up their own temporary morgues.

Crematoriums are running overtime. Families wait more than a week to bury loved ones.

For body couriers and funeral workers, there's no letup in sight. bit.ly/3fNuFfP

2/ More than 4,000 people in Texas have died with the coronavirus. That’s surely an undercount.

Few regions have been hit as hard as the Rio Grande Valley. bit.ly/3fNuFfP

3/ Here, the government has dispatched mobile morgues.

Refrigerated trucks are popping up behind hospital wards and funeral homes.

Bodies wrapped in plastic or sheets line up on their floors. bit.ly/3fNuFfP

4/ More than 90% of the population is Hispanic, a demographic more likely than white people to end up hospitalized or die from the virus

There are 284 reported deaths in just one county in the Rio Grande Valley. bit.ly/3fNuFfP

5/ All of this is straining an industry that handles the mechanics of death.

Like this body courier. He picks up dead bodies and delivers them to funeral homes and the morgue. In a normal week, he gets 10 jobs.

This past weekend, he picked up 38 bodies. bit.ly/3fNuFfP

6/ Aaron Rivera, a third-generation funeral director in the Rio Grande Valley, bought a refrigerated trailer after he hit his storage capacity for six bodies earlier this month. bit.ly/3fNuFfP

7/ Kimberly Foerster's father died this month. She learned his body wouldn’t be cremated for about a week because the ovens “overheated” from overuse and broke down. bit.ly/3fNuFfP

8/ A sales representative with Dodge said there’s a weekslong wait to get gurneys from the main purveyor he works with. bit.ly/3fNuFfP

9/ The sales representative sells embalming chemicals and other equipment to funeral homes in the region.

He says his phone has been ringing for 10 days with requests for body bags. bit.ly/3fNuFfP

10/ Legacy Chapels in Edinburg has received 72 calls to pick up bodies in the last two weeks.

The funeral director here had to stop accepting remains destined for the crematory. The crematorium has been burning bodies 12 hours a day, seven days a week. bit.ly/3fNuFfP

11/11 Last night, a county judge in the Rio Grande Valley issued a shelter-at-home order and strongly encouraged businesses to close.

But under Gov. Greg Abbott's current statewide orders, local governments cannot enforce their own stay-at-home orders. bit.ly/2CXt2h6