FLOUR BLUFF, Texas — Power outages across the area have caused long lines at area fast food restaurants, with people unable to cook food at home. One of the busiest fast food locations in the area was the Whataburger on Waldron Rd. in Flour Bluff.
At points during the day, lines stretched halfway down the block. Dana Schenefeld, a Flour Bluff resident, said he has been without power since early Monday. He works as a delivery driver, and has been busy the last two days.
“I just finished up shopping for somebody at the grocery store, delivered that, picked up over here. This is nothing compared to yesterday. I did two runs out here, and had an hour wait for both of them,” Schenefeld said.
Lynn and Steve Easler are visiting the area from North Carolina. They are staying in Port Aransas and ventured down to Flour Bluff to get gas and look for food, since a lot of areas on the island have no power.
“We have no heat, no water, no electricity,” Lynn said. “Not many places are open, you can go out towards the island, and everything is closed because there’s no power there. So, if they’re open, people are stopping,” Steve added.
Across the street, the Flour Bluff couple in charge of Miss J’s Roadside Pies came out to provide their fellow residents with more food options.
“We were technically supposed to be off today, but a number of our friends told us they were without power, without electricity, low water pressure, cracked pipes. They kept asking, ‘are you out cooking, are you out cooking, are you out cooking?’” said Nero Patel. “We were doing nothing, so we thought this was a good way to help the community, but also see our friends, and break bread. Food is the universal language, so we’re just out here doing our little part, trying to stay warm while we feed the masses.”
Patel said they were lucky enough to only lose power at home briefly, but many of their customers didn’t have power at home.
A lot of the folks that are coming in are folks without power, that can’t cook a warm meal,” he said. “We’ve got the warm bus to kind of curl into, so as long as we can help folks out we’re going to. This line shows the number of people that need to be fed, so what little we can do, we’re down for the cause.”
