Thousands of Duval and Nassau county residents who had Hurricane Irma-related losses waited for hours in long lines under a hot sun Wednesday to get food reimbursement benefits.

Some of them arrived at Regency Square mall in Arlington as early as 3 a.m., although the Food for Florida Disaster Food Assistance Program offices did not open until 7 a.m. Some of them mistakenly thought they were going to get actual food, rather than an Electronic Benefits Transfer, or EBT, card to use at stores. Many of them did not realize they could have come another day and not waited so long. Day 1 also was meant for people whose last names began with the letter A through D, but organizers didn’t turn people away who were already there early.

By 9:30 a.m. the lines snaked up and down the parking lot outside the food court and around Dillard’s. People swapped Irma stories, complained about the heat and drank up free bottles of water. By 11 a.m. organizers were spreading the word for anyone who was not already in line to not show up that day.

Brenda Clarke, 70, said she arrived with her daughter Verna, 37, and granddaughter Kierra, 19, around 7:15 a.m. to stand in line at Tropical Park, though they did not receive their EBT card until more than three hours later. Their Coconut Grove home lost power for 10 days, ruining the ribs, steak, pork chops, eggs and milk they had stocked up on before the storm, and the Clarke women were impatient to replenish their supply.

The line they waited in eventually snaked across the parking lot three times over, even though some people ahead of them left when rain drenched the crowd.

“They were not organized,” Clarke’s daughter Verna said.