NORTH FORT MYERS, Fla. — The Lee Civic Center saw quite the turnout this weekend. Friday, Saturday and Sunfday, people lined up to receive D-SNAP benefits after Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
The crowd was so bad, surrounding roads were clogged for hours by traffic, as countless drivers tried to reach the venue to park and interact with officials conducting the benefits sign-ups.
Click below to see what Dominga Murray saw when she arrived at the Lee Civic Center:
Ashley Fitzgerald was one of thousands who waited in line for hours over the weekend.
"It is psychotic, we were in line for about 4 hours," she said.
The Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program allocates a card with government money loaded onto it for people to buy food.
"For one person it was $292. For 3 people it was $768 and it keeps going up from there," Fitzgerald said.
So why exactly was the line backed up for hours Friday, Saturday and Sunday? We're still waiting on from the Florida Department of Children and Families.
Fitzgerald had a theory. "There were way more non-English speaking people than English speaking people and that is also what ended up taking forever. They didn't differentiate the two lines until the very end," she said.
Many people in the line said they could not get through on the phone and had issues applying online.
On the D-SNAPwebsite it says people need to disclose their income, social security, disaster related expenses, among a list of other things..
Fitzgerald says, it could have been the extensive process that held up the line.
"I tried to sign up online originally but it never allowed me to. It said our county did not qualify, which we were affected by both [hurricanes]," she said.
