SAN ANTONIO — Patrick Fitsimmons, a food distribution worker and father of five, ran down his grocery list, item by item: Diapers, wipes, Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer. About one or two weeks' worth.
"You know, the norm I guess," he said. "Right now that’s going around with the whole coronavirus pandemic that’s going on.”
The reporter he was speaking to stood across the parking lot, keeping social distancing in mind.
“With the long lines and the long waits, it’s kind of drastic to me in a way,” Fitsimmons said. “Even though I’m out here doing the same thing.”
It's hard to estimate the number of people Patrick stood in line with outside the H-E-B Plus on Potranco Road on Thursday morning when the store hadn't even opened yet. The line was much longer given the six-foot gaps that separated customers.
By the time the doors opened, the line had reached around to the back of the building, where people stood next to large dumpsters wiping their hands with sanitizer.
Fitsimmons was mainly concerned with food, specifically the meat products he could use to make easy meals.
“With chicken I can make all types of different meals,” he said. “Chicken enchiladas, arroz con pollo. With ground beef, I can make enchiladas, hamburger helper, meat loaf. Things like that.”
Toilet paper, meanwhile, was the only thing Dawn Reynolds thought to mention.
“We’re a family of six and we had enough two weeks ago so I didn’t shop then,” she said.
Reynold said she would like to believe people have been clearing the shelves of toilet paper because they just don’t know how much they need.
“The reality is I think people are afraid, and that’s why they’re buying,” said Reynolds, stifling a nervous laugh. “But I kind of need the hoarders to stop so that those of us who actually need the items can get them.”
“If you wait til the afternoon, it’s not gonna happen,” said Trish, who came for rice and didn’t want to share her last name. “You have to be one of the first people to make sure that you get the items you need.”
Trish related the experience of waiting in line to the time she spent living overseas.
“They do come in at zero dark thirty to be able to get to their doctor's appointments or get to where they need to get to.”
That feeling was echoed by Samuel Casillas, who compared the experience to movies he had seen as a child.
“When I was a kid I would see all these movies about Russia and everybody was in line for stuff,” he said. “And I’m thinking, 'That’s weird. How can anybody live like that?' And now we’re living like that.”