Coronavirus Overwhelms Texas Funeral Homes

ELSA, Texas — Johnny Salinas Jr., the owner of Salinas Funeral Home, typically handles five funerals a week. But on a recent day, with the coronavirus tearing through his community, he saw that many grieving families in a single day.

A sixth family was waiting, too. His own.

Mr. Salinas changed from a polo shirt into a crisp black suit and left his office for the chapel next door. The light blue coffin of his great-uncle, who died of Covid-19, sat at the front of the room, adorned with white flower arrangements and a wooden crucifix.

“The virus is not sparing anyone,” Mr. Salinas said. “Not even my family.”

In the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where a surge of virus cases has set off a flood of deaths this month, funeral homes — like hospitals — are overloaded and struggling to carry out basic services and keep up with the expanding crisis. Local funeral homes, officials said, have not experienced such demand in decades.

About one in 60 residents of Hidalgo County is known to have had the virus, and about one of every 2,000 people has died from the virus, a New York Times database shows. Hidalgo County now has one of the highest per capita death rates in the state.