SAN ANTONIO — The San Antonio Food Bank is distributing emergency food to families who lost groceries during extended power outages following severe storms that hit the city over the weekend.
The food bank began preparing for increased demand Saturday as widespread outages left households without refrigeration and threatened to spoil meat, dairy products, eggs and other perishable food.
“Our teams hit the kitchens and started preparing meals as early as Saturday morning,” Michael Guerra of the San Antonio Food Bank said. “We started inventory and what we might have as far as dairy, eggs, you know, those kind of things because we knew powers off. That’s what’s going to go.”
Food bank teams are coordinating with city and county emergency operations and CPS Energy to identify neighborhoods most affected by the storms and determine where residents need assistance.
Guerra said the food bank is bringing distributions closer to affected neighborhoods rather than requiring residents without power to travel across the city.
“People are maybe staying at home. They don’t want to get away from their home. They don’t have power,” Guerra said. “So if you can get into those neighborhoods with food, with resources, that’s best, rather than making them travel across the city.”
The emergency distributions also place greater emphasis on refrigerated and frozen foods that families may have lost during the outages.
Regular food bank distributions typically include pantry staples, bread, dairy products and fresh produce. Guerra said teams are increasing the amount of refrigerated and frozen food in the current response.
Food bank workers have spent several days taking inventory, organizing deliveries and coordinating distribution locations as power restoration continues.
Bilingual case managers are also available to help residents find nearby food pantries and mobile distributions.
The food bank’s emergency response comes as San Antonio families continue recovering from storm damage and prolonged power outages that disrupted daily life across the city.
