KATRINA

The sheriff of Orleans Parish, Marlin N. Gusman, did not call for help in evacuating the prison until midnight on Monday, August 29, a state Department of Corrections and Public Safety spokeswoman told Human Rights Watch. Other parish prisons, she said, had called for help on the previous Saturday and Sunday. The evacuation of Orleans Parish Prison was not completed until Friday, September 2.

According to officers who worked at two of the jail buildings, Templeman 1 and 2, they began to evacuate prisoners from those buildings on Tuesday, August 30, when the floodwaters reached chest level inside. These prisoners were taken by boat to the Broad Street overpass bridge, and ultimately transported to correctional facilities outside New Orleans.

But at Templeman III, which housed about 600 inmates, there was no prison staff to help the prisoners. Inmates interviewed by Human Rights Watch varied about when they last remember seeing guards at the facility, but they all insisted that there were no correctional officers in the facility on Monday, August 29. A spokeswoman for the Orleans parish sheriff’s department told Human Rights Watch she did not know whether the officers at Templeman III had left the building before the evacuation.

According to inmates interviewed by Human Rights Watch, they had no food or water from the inmates' last meal over the weekend of August 27-28 until they were evacuated on Thursday, September 1. By Monday, August 29, the generators had died, leaving them without lights and sealed in without air circulation. The toilets backed up, creating an unbearable stench.

“They left us to die there,” Dan Bright, an Orleans Parish Prison inmate told Human Rights Watch at Rapides Parish Prison, where he was sent after the evacuation.

As the water began rising on the first floor, prisoners became anxious and then desperate. Some of the inmates were able to force open their cell doors, helped by inmates held in the common area. All of them, however, remained trapped in the locked facility.

“The water started rising, it was getting to here,” said Earrand Kelly, an inmate from Templeman III, as he pointed at his neck. “We was calling down to the guys in the cells under us, talking to them every couple of minutes. They were crying, they were scared. The one that I was cool with, he was saying ‘I'm scared. I feel like I'm about to drown.' He was crying.”

Some inmates from Templeman III have said they saw bodies floating in the floodwaters as they were evacuated from the prison. A number of inmates told Human Rights Watch that they were not able to get everyone out from their cells.

Inmates broke jail windows to let air in. They also set fire to blankets and shirts and hung them out of the windows to let people know they were still in the facility. Apparently at least a dozen inmates jumped out of the windows.

”We started to see people in T3 hangin' shirts on fire out the windows,” Brooke Moss, an Orleans Parish Prison officer told Human Rights Watch. “They were wavin' em. Then we saw them jumping out of the windows . . . Later on, we saw a sign, I think somebody wrote `help' on it.”

As of yesterday, signs reading “Help Us,” and “One Man Down,” could still be seen hanging from a window in the third floor of Templeman III.

Several corrections officers told Human Rights Watch there was no evacuation plan for the prison, even though the facility had been evacuated during floods in the 1990s.

“It was complete chaos,” said a corrections officer with more than 30 years of service at Orleans Parish Prison. When asked what he thought happened to the inmates in Templeman III, he shook his head and said: “Ain't no tellin’ what happened to those people.”

“At best, the inmates were left to fend for themselves,” said Carey. “At worst, some may have died.”

Human Rights Watch was not able to speak directly with Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin N. Gussman or the ranking official in charge of Templeman III. A spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department told Human Rights Watch that search-and-rescue teams had gone to the prison and she insisted that “nobody drowned, nobody was left behind.”

Human Rights Watch compared an official list of all inmates held at Orleans Parish Prison immediately prior to the hurricane with the most recent list of the evacuated inmates compiled by the state Department of Corrections and Public Safety (which was entitled, “All Offenders Evacuated”). However, the list did not include 517 inmates from the jail, including 130 from Templeman III.

Many of the men held at jail had been arrested for offenses like criminal trespass, public drunkenness or disorderly conduct. Many had not even been brought before a judge and charged, much less been convicted.

September 21, 2005 8:00PM EDT

New Orleans: Prisoners Abandoned to Floodwaters

Officers Deserted a Jail Building, Leaving Inmates Locked in Cells

Human Rights Watch

 https://www.aclu.org/other/summary-testimonials-inmates-incarcerated-orleans-parish-prison-during-hurricane-katrina

Inmate #1 states she was housed in Templeman IV during Hurricane Katrina. She says she had been incarcerated in OPP for four months prior to Hurricane Katrina. When the hurricane hit, Inmate #1 says her dorm quickly filled with chest high water. She states she was next moved to a smoke-filled dorm where she was housed with male prisoners. She says that the deputies locked her and the other prisoners inside the dorm. “While I was a [sic] Templeman the deputy les [sic] did lock all the doors I feared [sic] for my life. I thought I was going to die.” She says she was not fed or given water for three days. Inmate #1 says she was next moved into a room filled with water and made to stay there for 24 hours prior to being moved onto the Interstate 10 overpass. On the overpass, she states she was ordered not to move on threat of being shot by the guards. While on the overpass, she states that fellow prisoners were losing consciousness from hunger and dehydration; she herself was pepper-sprayed.

 

Inmate #2 says he was housed in Templeman 1 Units A-3 and D-4 during Hurricane Katrina. Inmate #2 states he was housed in OPP for 2 and a half weeks prior to Hurricane Katrina. Inmate #2 reports that the guards did not stay on their posts; the guards would leave for hours at a time. When the guards would return, they would mace prisoners and shoot them with bean bags. Inmate #2 reports that he saw two dead bodies floating on the first floor medical ward. Inmate #2 states he was not given food or water during the hurricane both while in Templeman and while out on the Interstate 10 overpass. Inmate #2 says he was on the overpass for 24 hours. Prior to reaching the overpass, Inmate #2 states he was made to wait in line in water up to his/her neck. While on the overpass, Inmate #2 reports he was not allowed to move around or stretch on threat of being shot by the guards. Eventually, Inmate #2 and prisoners around Inmate #2 were maced for attempting to stretch their legs. When boarding a bus to leave the overpass, Inmate #2 states that he was pushed and verbally abused by Angola deputies. “When getting ready to board the buses we was pushed and told to hurry up you (bitches) by Angola deputies.”

 

Inmate #3 was incarcerated in the House of Detention (HOD) for over a month prior to Hurricane Katrina. He says he was locked in his cell with no food or water. Deputies quit their jobs and left their posts. “Some deputies left there [sic] position talking about they quit there [sic] job.” A Sgt. Bell hit Inmate #3 on top of his head with a pump. Inmate #3 heard several shots fired within the prison and says that the deputies assaulted and maced him and other prisoners. Upon reaching the interstate 10 overpass, Inmate #3 received the sustenance he had been denied inside HOD: “I receive [sic] water and food when I reach [sic] the overpass but they let us starve while I was in prison.” Inmate #3 was transferred to Angola, but the abuse did not stop. “I am scare [sic] for my life cause [sic] these deputies beating [sic] on us inmates.”

 

Inmate #4 was incarcerated in OPP (HOD) for three months prior to Hurricane Katrina. He was left in a locked cell and not moved until three days after Hurricane Katrina hit the jail. Food and water were not provided to any of the prisoners around Inmate #4, “no, no-one had food or water for four five days at least.” Inmate #4 says that abuse was rampant. “...[D]eputies just about assaulted everyone [Y]es they did mace guys for no reason.”

 

 

Inmate #5 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman III F and C Side) for 2 weeks prior to Hurricane Katrina. OPP guards left Inmate #5 locked in his cell in rapidly rising water for 3 days. “[T]he flood water got up to 6 feet up to my neck, and I’m 6'1", I really thought I was going to die...” Inmate #5 says the power went out and inmates had “fires burning inside the building...” Eventually the smoke became overpowering and the inmates “had to break all the windows to get air...” The lack of power left Templeman III dark to the point “you could not see in front of you....” As the days went on, the inmates took desperate measures to get help. “[W]e were just scared to die in the High Water we were hangeing [sic] out of windows with sings [sic] saying help us But know [sic] one came!” Eventually guards did come and take Inmate #5 to the Interstate 10 overpass. “When we were moved out we lefed [sic] a lot of guys still in there [sic] cells they could not get out, they were saying Please Help us But we Could not the guards just lefted [sic] them there.” While on the overpass, Inmate #5 observed, “they had dead people in the water dogs, cats, oil, gas, Wast [sic], what ever you could name they had it, I did not want to witness any of this s**t!” From the overpass, Inmate #5 was transferred to Hunt Correctional Facility where, “we were liveing [sic] like abandit [sic] animals” and the guards, “talked to us like shite [sic].” Inmate #5 was eventually transferred to Angola where he says, “I saw the guards here Beat, Kick, Punch, slappe [sic], even mace a few guys. ”

 

 

Inmate #6 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman IV Unit A) for a month prior to Hurricane Katrina. She says that there were virtually no deputies present the night of the hurricane. Her cell filled with water which eventually rose to her chest. The next morning she was moved into Templeman III (where men are housed) and locked in a cell. The men had been setting fires prior to her arrival at Templeman III. “There was ‘NO’ vintilation [sic] and it was filled with smoke to such a capacity that we were coughing uncontrollably and literally could not breathe.” She says she had nothing to eat from Monday morning (8/29/05) until Wednesday Night (8/31/05). Several of the men attempted to escape, she says “they were not only shot at, but they were also kicked, beatened [sic] with clubs , and the butt of Deputy assault weapons!” On the morning of 8/30/05 she was evacuated to the Interstate 10 overpass. “The evacuation: hideous to say the least . . . . So gruesome that we had to walk/wade through standing toxic-contaminated water filled with feces, urine and all kinds of other foreign debris for days on end that the details are actually almost impossible to fathom how one can survive it and not be scarred to extremes.”

 

Inmate #7 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman II E-2) for four months prior to Hurricane Katrina. He reports that he received, “no Food are [sic] water are [sic] air. They left us to Die.” He was left in a locked cell and says that guards assaulted and maced him and other inmates. He states that inmates did attempt to escape, “or they would have Died.” Escaping inmates were shot at; inmates not attempting to escape were shot with bean bags. He says that he saw  dead people in the water.   In order  to reach the overpass, Inmate #7 says  he walked through chest high water with human waste, oil and gas. He was eventually sent to Hunt Correctional Facility, which he described as “[p]ure [h]ell.” The guards at Hunt, “treated us like Old nasty Dogs. We could asked them nothing if you tryed [sic], you might get shot at, are [sic] curse out.”

 

Inmate #8 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman I Unit D-4) for 5 months prior to Hurricane Katrina. During the hurricane itself, Inmate #8 fell on the wet floor (“it was like walking on wet glass”) and injured his back. Eventually, his unit was flooded to a chest-high level. Prior to the hurricane, the deputies left their posts, “on August 27th 2005, about 11:30 P.M., Saturday Night.” He says that prisoners did escape, “through brakeing [sic] holes through the walls, because the deputies left us for dead.” The escaping prisoners, “were in fact shot at, and had “Broken” arms...” While Inmate #8 did not see any dead bodies in the jail, he said, “the inmates who first experienced the water before I did, Did state there were bodies dead floating in the Medical Unit, M.O.U. and on the receiving tier, first floor, where inmates were traped [sic].” Inmate #8 says that inmates were burning milk cartons to see (the power had gone out) and the resulting smoke made it very difficult to breathe. Inmate #8 suffers from high blood pressure and was unable to obtain medical help. Eventually he was evacuated to the Interstate 10 overpass. While on the overpass, the guards sprayed him with pepper spray for stretching his legs.

 

Inmate #9 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman I Unit F-4) for a month prior to Hurricane Katrina. He says that the deputies abandoned their posts and he was left in a locked cell. He says that he went two to three days without food, water, lights and medication. According to Inmate #9, it was unbearably hot in Templeman I, “breathing was very hard I had to fan myself to keep from passing out everything was out of control we had no one to look after us were left for dead.” He was eventually evacuated to the Interstate 10 overpass. To reach the overpass he had to walk through contaminated water. “The water was nasty all black an dirty all types of debris even human waste. There was no way that I could have stop the force of that water entering my mouth I swallow some of it I even vomit an I felt bad for hours I felt like I was going to die.” Inmate #9 has been suffering from serious mental and physical health problems. “I need to see a doctor I need help urgently soon as possible I can not go on living like this...” Eventually, Inmate #9 made it to Hunt, which he described as “devastating like a horror movie or something...”

 

Inmate #10 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman III Unit A-4) for three days prior to Hurricane Katrina. The deputies abandoned their posts and locked inmate #10 in his cell. Eventually, inmate #10 was in a locked cell in waist high water. He was not provided food between August 27th and September 1st. He says that prisoners escaped and guards shot at the escaping prisoners. Eventually he was evacuated and he ended up at Hunt Correctional Facility. At Hunt, “[m]en were stabbing each other, fighting... [g]uards were macing us....

People were also being rape [sic]. One inmate at Hunt suffered a stab wound and ran to the guards for assistance; they told him to get back to the yard, when he didn’t move he was shot at and maced.

 

Inmate #11 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman II) for fifty days prior to Hurricane Katrina. He was left in total darkness with no food and water for several days. There was little to no staff supervision, “[m]ost deputies have abandon [sic] their post.” The Special Investigation Division eventually came into Inmate #11's unit and “began waving their guns in our faces.” Inmate #11 witnessed many inmates fight each other in OPP. “There were no safety measures taken to insure my or other inmates well-being.” He was evacuated Wednesday morning and “had to wade & stand in the most foulest water I have ever seen.” He was taken to the Interstate 10 overpass where he was maced several times for having to stretch or use the bathroom. He was given no food or water.

 

Inmate #12 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman I Unit E-1) for 2 months prior to Hurricane Katrina. Before the hurricane, staff members at OPP told the inmates that Katrina was scheduled to hit New Orleans. However, he says that “no one in athority [sic] (deputy) mention any plans or precaution. We were on our own.” Inmate #12 is a 54 year old male with high blood pressure. The power went out and the heat soon became unbearable. “We needed help! Out of desperation we began to bang on the metal door hopeing [sic] someone was there, finally the deputy we thought would help, burst in spraying mace and beating us with flashlights and clubs.” Next the prisoners in Inmate #12's dorm were forced to break windows in order to get air. After three days in Templeman 1 the guards began to evacuate the dorm. In order to reach the Interstate 10 overpass, inmate #12 walked through, “nasty stinky water up to my shoulders. Everything was in that water for three-3- blocks, human bowel [sic], dead animals, cases of used surenges [sic] - needles. Upon reaching the overpass, “[i]f we ask for food or water we were mace or beat.” “I never experience anything like this since Vietnam.” Inmate #12 states that the guards on the overpass would sic dogs on the inmates if they stood up to stretch. He says that many inmates on the overpass were sick and desperately needed medical attention they did not receive.

 

Inmate #13 was incarcerated in OPP (Rendon Work Release) for eighteen months prior to Hurricane Katrina. The day before the hurricane, Inmate #13 was moved to Templeman V. The morning of the hurricane, “we awake to find water up to our knees and no security.   the power was off and no one had access to any food or water for 4 days even the pregnant juvenile females...” Inmate #13 is a high blood pressure patient and was unable to obtain his medication following the hurricane. Inmate #13 says that Templeman V was forced to evacuate without assistance from the guards following the fourth day without food and water. Because the water was up to 6 feet deep outside their building, they had to assist the pregnant females. Once inmate #13 reached the Interstate 10 overpass he asked for his blood pressure medication, “and was told if I ask again I would be shot.” Eventually Inmate #13 was sent to Hunt Correctional Facility where he witnessed violence and rape. “I saw violent acks [sic] such as rape and stabbings in the short period of time I was there on the recreational yard.... one inmate got stabbeb [sic] on the yard and ask the guard to help him and the deputy shot at him and the man was visibly covered in blood..”

 

Inmate #14 was incarcerated in OPP (Conchetta Unit 1-2) for six days prior to Hurricane Katrina. She was moved from the first floor because it was flooded. She was locked in a cell on the second floor. She says that the guards were assaulting the prisoners. Inmate #14 did not have food or water for five days. “ I was very weak and very hungry believe me I really didn’t thing [sic] we were going to live to talk to our family.” Eventually, Inmate #14 was evacuated to the Interstate 10 overpass where she was given food and water. She is “a very sick woman I have a heart condition and I have high blood pressure,” and she was not given her medication on the overpass or in OPP. Currently, Inmate #14 is incarcerated in Angola and she has yet to receive any medication.

 

Inmate #15 was incarcerated in OPP (HOD) for one year prior to Hurricane Katrina. He reports that he knows the deputies left their posts because, “we couldn’t get an answer for days.” The deputies did not return to move inmate #15 for four to five days. During this time he was provided little to no food or water. Inmate #15 referred to this time as, “horrible, the worst thing I experiment [sic] in life.” According to inmate #15, prisoners were escaping through windows and he saw guards shooting at the escaping inmates. He also saw a dead body “flowing in the parkin [sic] lot.”

 

Inmate #16 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman II Unit D-3) for two months prior to Hurricane Katrina. Inmate #16 states, “the deputies did not stay on their posts we were left for dead for three days we were left on the tier with no power, lights, food or water our dome [sic] was lock [sic] and we didn’t have much air to breathe.” Medication was not available because, “everyone had left.” Prisoners were attempting to escape but deputies were macing and shooting at them. When inmate #16 was eventually evacuated he “feared for my life as I saw all of the water it was up to my neck.” He was transported to the Interstate 10 overpass on the back of a truck; the overpass is “where we saw dead bodies floating.” The overpass is also where “some people began to faint and pass out because of the heat and hunger pains.” Inmate #16 was also forced to sit motionless on the overpass and was threatened with being shot. Finally, Inmate #16 was taken to Hunt where “for two days there were fights where people was getting stabbed, bust [sic] in the head and shot or shot at. ”

 

Inmate #17 was incarcerated in OPP (Conchetta Unit 3-1) for sixteen to seventeen days prior to Hurricane Katrina. She states that guards gave the inmates contaminated water from a shower to drink. Then the guards took the water back to bathe in and afterwards returned it to the inmates to drink. She reports that “people were fainting and seizing up and the gaurds [sic] wouldn’t come to help.” The guards also refused to intervene when five or six girls began beating one girl over a food dispute. The dorm became pitch black and because the toilets were full and overflowing - there was a toxic smell in the air. “People were losing their minds with hunger & delirium.” Inmate #17 was evacuated by crawling through second story window out onto a boat. She was taken to the Interstate 10 overpass and told that there was no food. She began to eat out of a trash can because she was starving.

 

Inmate #18 was incarcerated in OPP (Conchetta Unit 3-2) for two days prior to Hurricane Katrina. She says that she had no water and was forced to drink out of the toilet. The deputies left their posts and had food to eat and water to drink. They did not share with the prisoners. Inmate #18 states that deputies would only come to where the prisoners were when fights would break out; “they would mace the inmattes [sic] curse them out and hit them they were not doing anything to help.” For four days inmate #18 had no food to eat and only contaminated water from a trash can to drink. Women were passing out “left and right and they [the deputies] said what do you want us to do. ”

 

Inmate #19 was incarcerated in OPP (Conchetta Unit D-1) for two months prior to Hurricane Katrina. “It was like we were left to die. No water, no air, no food. We were left with deputies that were out of control!” 100 women were being held in Inmate #19's dorm because of flooding–the dorm was unbearably hot. The deputies had food to eat and water to drink while the inmates “drank water out of trash cans …” Inmate #19 still has “recurring nightmares about what I saw and what I went through.” She describes her evacuation as “deplorable” and states that she was “abandoned with no thought about water/food.” She says the deputies were spraying male inmates with gas.

 

Inmate #20 was incarcerated in OPP (Conchetta) for 25 months prior to Hurricane Katrina. The first day of the hurricane the inmates were “left without lights and air venthilation [sic].” Medication was not provided to anyone. By the second day, the inmates in her unit were not being fed and were forced to drink contaminated water out of the toilet. The inmates from the first floor were moved up to Inmate #20's floor and the heat soon became unbearable. The smell was also unbearable. “The smell at this point was horrendous. Decay, vomit, blood and urine permeated from every crevice.” The inmates were forced to break windows to get air. The lack of medical attention led to rampant problems, “[w]omen were having seisures [sic], birthing pains, panic and asthma attacks.” Eventually Inmate #20 was evacuated to the Interstate 10 overpass. There she witnessed the result of one escape attempt. “A male tried to run/escape and was shot in the back.” Inmate #20 was also maced and denied medical treatment.

 

Inmate #21 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman I) for four days prior to Hurricane Katrina. He was locked in a cell with other inmates where water rose to chest level. Deputies were not at their posts and he had no way to communicate with anyone besides other trapped inmates. After he was eventually released from this cell, he and others were evacuated to a higher floor of the building and locked and abandoned for two days. “We made a hold [sic] in the wall so we can get some help from outside but no one came.” He was eventually able to escape by swimming out of the hole and being escorted by deputies to an overpass. During this time, he had no access to food or water for three days. There was no access to medication and “inmates [were] passing out on the overpass…” After being transferred to Hunt Correctional Center, he slept on the wet ground with no mattress for two days, before being transferred two further times until he finally arrived at South Louisiana Correctional Center.

 

Inmate #22 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman I) for five months prior to Hurricane Katrina. During the hurricane, there was no electricity in the prison and deputies left their posts. His cell filled with water. He was not provided medication or drinking water and was in “serious pain.” He was physically assaulted in his cell and not evacuated until three days after the hurricane.

 

Inmate #23 was incarcerated in OPP (Old Parish Prison) for six months prior to Hurricane Katrina. His unit lost electricity and he was ankle deep in water. “You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face!” Most deputies left the posts, and the few who stayed did not provide food or water to the inmates. “We had one pack of cereal during those three days of Hell!” After inmates from a lower floor were brought up to the third floor, they were overcrowded and had double the number of people for the cell capacity. He was eventually evacuated after three days. He was brought by boat to the overpass, sprayed with mace and forced to “lay down on wet grass outside for 24 hours” with one bottle of water, but no food. He had painful rashes and no opportunity for medical treatment. He describes assaults by staff members both under the bridge in New Orleans and at Hunt Correctional Facility.

 

Inmate #24 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman I) for two days prior to Hurricane Katrina. His building lost power prior to the storm; and there was no access to food, water, or medication. He was locked in a cell filled with water until released by deputies. After he was released, he waded in chest-deep water. “I thought things would get much better but it got worser [sic]. I though [sic] I was going to die that I wasn’t going to make it out there. I was stuck on that bridge for three days – no water or nothing.” After being evacuated to the bridge, he was sprayed repeatedly with mace and saw people shot.

 

Inmate #25 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman IV) for two months prior to Hurricane Katrina. There was no electricity at the time the hurricane hit and they received their last meal on the morning of the hurricane. She was trapped in a ground-level dorm in 4-5 feet of water for two days. There were inmates shot and tear gas released. After two days, she was transferred to Templeman III and again locked in a cell, and still without any access to food or water and without electricity. Despite this transfer, she was “once again back in this five feet contaminated water, floated feces, dead bloated animals.” She and other inmates were eventually released and transferred to a bridge, where they stayed for 24 hours at gunpoint without blankets, food, or water. At the bridge, she saw guards harassing and beating some inmates. Her eyes and face were swollen for days afterwards, she believes from exposure.

 

Inmate #26 was incarcerated in OPP (Conchetta) for one day prior to Hurricane Katrina. Her cell filled with backed-up toilet water. During the two days between the hurricane hitting and her evacuation, she had only a plate of grits and a cup of water. She was evacuated through an open window on the second floor and onto a small fishing boat. When she was being evacuated, she saw dead bodies. “They told us if we didn’t shut up we were going to stay there another day.” They had to “walk through sewer water” to get to the bridge. At the bridge, she had no access to food or water.

 

Inmate #27 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman) for eight months prior to Hurricane Katrina. On the evening of the hurricane, water had entered the cells. “We couldn’t even see the toilets and no electricity.  The water was waist-deep. Feces was floating in the water from the toilets. By 3pm on the [day after the hurricane hit], the water was up to our armpits. We were calling for help, but no one would come to our calls for help.” The deputies had left their posts, but after one day came to evacuate her and others to the second floor of the men’s facility next door, wading through armpit-deep water in the dark. She was transferred to a cell that was smoky from a fire.   She had no food or water.  She was evacuated from the prison that afternoon, wading through water that “was literally burning my skin it was so thick with diesel fuel from the pumps.” She waited in central lock-up for nine hours. While they were waiting, she saw deputies shooting at the male prisoners. She saw male inmates “with sheets and stuff on poles or broom sticks or something on fire . . . out the window yelling to save them.” She had no water during the night she spent on the overpass. In the morning, six boats with a capacity of six persons each arrived to evacuate 1700 people. People who challenged the process or refused to sit down on the hot concrete were maced or beaten. Ironically, she describes how she only felt safe when she arrived at Angola prison, “if you can believe that in a maximum security prison for men with murders [sic] and rapist [sic].” She was shocked that nothing had been done earlier, especially when she heard from those at Angola that “they were ready since the 20th of Aug. to receive us.” She did not eat or drink between the morning of the 29th and the evening of the 31st.

 

Inmate #28 was incarcerated in OPP (Conchetta) for five days prior to Hurricane Katrina. She was evacuated after the water reached five inches. She had nothing to eat and was given water “out of a dirty trash can.” She was evacuated by boat on Wednesday to the bridge and then the overpass.

 

Inmate #29 was incarcerated in OPP (Conchetta) for three months prior to Hurricane Katrina. They lost power due to the hurricane and were forced to drink “contaminated water from unsanitized garbage cans.” She suffers from asthma and had no access to necessary medical treatment. She was evacuated by boat on Thursday to the Interstate 10 overpass where she received “Cheetos, glass of water, and an apple; some inmates received nothing.” She was left on the interstate for hours before being transported to Angola by bus.

 

Inmate #30 was incarcerated in OPP (Conchetta) for 26 days prior to Hurricane Katrina and had not yet gone to court. She was on the second floor and water only reached the top of the stairs. All of those on the first floor were evacuated to the second floor, the beds were removed from the cells, and all were crowded in. “People crammed like sardines – it was horrible.” The inmates broke a window to let some air in. She did not eat for the two days before she was evacuated and was only provided one half-cup of water from a garbage can. “We found this one button that you push to flush the toilet leaked water when you flushed so there was a mad rush to it.” She was mistreated by the guards who “talked and screamed at us like we were total garbage the whole time.” When she ran out of her asthma medication, it was never replaced. Multiple people had seizures and a woman went into pre- term labor two months early. “Our dorm looked like a city dump – feces in the shower, the toilets were overflowing…It’s sad to think and know now that the people at Angola were waiting for us on Friday the 26th. But our Mayor and Sheriff said ‘keep them where they belong.’” When she was evacuated, they were forced to leave everything behind.

 

Inmate #31 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman I Unit D2) for 6 and a half months prior to Hurricane Katrina. He states that the inmates on his unit were forced to break windows to get fresh air. He also says that he was in a locked cell while in Templeman. The deputies vacated their posts; Inmate #31 says he did not see a deputy until they “they came back to let us out.” The deputies evacuated Inmate #31's unit two days after the hurricane. He was taken to the Interstate 10 overpass, where he states, “for two more days we stood there with no food or water.” Inmate #31 eventually fainted from a lack of food and water; he asked deputies on the overpass for food and they told him to sit down. He says that the deputies shot at inmates for attempting to escape, or as Inmate #31 characterized it, “trying to live.” Inmate #31 reports he saw the arm of a man that he knew to be dead.

 

Inmate #32 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman I Unit D2) for three months prior to Hurricane Katrina. The power in Inmate #32's cell went out the night of the hurricane; he says that three days went by before he saw a deputy. During those three days in Templeman, plus an additional two days on the Interstate 10 overpass, Inmate #32 did not receive any food, water or medication.

 

Inmate #33 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman II Unit E-3) for a month prior to Hurricane Katrina. According to Inmate #33, Unit E-3 was completely abandoned by the prison staff, “we did not see any more deputies, medical personnel, or ranking officers for 5 days or nights.” During this time, the inmates in Unit E-3 “did not have. . .medications, no electricity, no water, no food, no air, and no change of clothes....” In addition, they were locked inside their dormitory. The floors in Unit E-3 were filled with two feet of water; this water was contaminated with urine and feces. According to Inmate #33, the inmates in Unit E-3 were forced to break windows to get fresh air because “[w]e could not breath [sic] from the urine and feces.” Eventually, Inmate #33 was evacuated to the interstate 10 overpass. He was told, “to shut my f**ing mouth up and sit down” when he asked a ranking officer if the inmates were going to get food, water, medication, or a change of clothes. Inmate #33 says 6 female deputies told him that 21 inmates had perished in OPP. Currently, Inmate #33 is housed at Claiborne Parish Detention Center where he is “scared to death” because inmates are punched, slapped and kicked at random.

 

Inmate #34 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman I Unit D-4) for ten months prior to Hurricane Katrina. Unit D-4 was without power and food during the hurricane. The deputies abandoned their posts for three days and did not return until the day after Hurricane Katrina. In the absence of the deputies, “[p]anic and chaos erupted in our dorm. Fear and hunger gripped everyone, Fights broke out . . . .” The deputies took Inmate #34 and the prisoners from his unit down to the first floor where, “we encountered waters 4 and a half feet high full of contamination of fuel and human waist [sic]. First Floor was over Flowing with material from every toilet of three days use.” Upon reaching the Interstate 10 overpass, Inmate #34 says “there was nothing but more confusion accompanied with pepper spray. We were brought no food or water.”

 

Inmate #35 was incarcerated in OPP (Old Parish Prison Unit B-4) prior to Hurricane Katrina. The deputies in Inmate #35's unit abandoned the prisoners with no food, water and medication until they were eventually evacuated. Inmate #35 says several inmates “escaped by breaking through walls and windows and jumping to freedom.” These escaping inmates were shot at and Inmate #35 heard several of the gunshots. Inmate #35 had this to say of his experience at OPP: “the conditions that I were [sic] left in were some of the stuff you only see on T.V. the stench from the waste and urine was horrendous. The five days in which I was left in total chaos with some of the most dangerous criminals in the city was one I wish never to endure again.” On Wednesday August 31, 2005, Inmate #35 was taken to the Interstate 10 overpass. He says the deputies escorting inmates to the overpass were tasering and macing prisoners. Once on the overpass, Inmate #35 says there was still no water, food or medication provided to him or other inmates. Inmate #35 was eventually taken to Hunt Correctional Facility where “their [sic] were several incidents of stabbings, beating’s [sic] and on one occassion [sic] a fellow inmate was shot by prison guard while only seeking help from his man wound’s [sic].”

 

Inmate #36 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman I Unit F-1) for seven months prior to Hurricane Katrina. For more than twenty-four hours Inmate #36 was without lights, water, food or facilities. Inmate #36 says the deputies in his unit abandoned their posts during this same period. When Inmate #36 was evacuated, he was forced to stand in chest high water for five to six hours without being provided food or water. In addition, Inmate #36 was beaten and maced by deputies for talking. Eventually, Inmate #36 was taken to the Interstate 10 overpass where he was not given food, water or medical attention for two days. He was also maced several times. Inmate #36 had this to say of his time on the overpass: “[t]heir [sic] were many people being beaten, falling out, even dead.”

 

Inmate #37 was incarcerated in OPP prior to Hurricane Katrina. Inmate #37 was forced to go several days without food; he also had to drink contaminated water. Because of the lack of ventilation, Inmate #37 says inmates began to break out windows just to get air. The deputies were ignoring the inmates. “[I] seen one guy fall out, and the officer didn’t no [sic], if he died or passed out, because they (officers) refused to come and see what his problem was.”

 

Inmate #38 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman I Medical Unit B-1) for ten months prior to Hurricane Katrina. Inmate #38 (who uses a wheelchair) was housed in a unit abandoned by deputies and filled with sewer water. Several inmates were forced to open their own cells because “the deputies left them in their [sic] to die.” The deputies also assaulted and maced prisoners in Inmate #38's unit. Inmate #38 was not provided water or food for nearly five days. He says that a few prisoners were shot at when attempting to escape. “I am having nightmare at night because all I think about is that I could of die because the deputies did not want to do they job.”

 

Inmate #39 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman I A Side) for two days prior to Hurricane Katrina. Inmate #39 says that the water in Templeman A side was twelve feet high and the deputies “left us in there to die.” He was moved to Templeman II where there was no food, water or air for 3 days. Inmates at Templeman II were “dieing [sic] left and right passing out couldn’t breath [sic].” Inmate #39 says inmates were shot at when attempting to escape. He says that inmates were being shot in the head at close range and escaping prisoners were also being shot at close range. Once Inmate #39 reached the Interstate 10 overpass, inmates were being maced, shot at, and bitten by police dogs.

Inmate #40 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman III Unit A-1) for a week prior to Hurricane Katrina. In Unit A-1 inmates were locked in cell–four to six people in two men cells. The water rose rapidly and days passed without food or water. Eventually, other prisoners managed to break out of their cells and they attempted to free the prisoners still locked in cells. Prisoners began breaking windows and setting fires in a desperate attempt to get air and alert the deputies to their plight. Officers from the Special Investigation Division came onto the unit and began to shoot at the prisoners out of their cells. The SID officers locked the prisoners back up and told the other inmates to wait. By the time Inmate #40 was freed from his cell (Tuesday night, Wednesday morning) he was standing in chest high water. Inmate #40 was taken to central lockup to where other inmates were already in a frenzied state, waiting to be taken to the Interstate 10 overpass. Inmate #40 states that prisoners attempting to escape were “maced, shot at and even shot as they tried to escape.” Once Inmate #40 reached the overpass, he was denied food and water for an additional two days. Some prisoners on the overpass were being sprayed with mace, others were “falling out.” Inmate #40 was eventually sent to Hunt Correctional Facility where inmates were fighting and stabbing each other out on the yard.

 

Inmate #41 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman II Unit F-2) for thirteen months prior to Hurricane Katrina. He says the deputies assigned to Unit F-2 left their posts for hours at a time. He also states that the deputies assaulted and maced prisoners. As for food, Inmate #41 reports “we didn’t eat anything for about 3 days.” Unit F-2 also lost all power and no inmates were provided with medication. Inmate #41 says the inmates on Unit F-2 “seen a few dead bodies and we were told not to say nothing or we were going to be like them.” When Inmate #41 was evacuated from Templeman II, the water was very high so he says prisoners had to swim or wade out to safety. He eventually reached the Interstate 10 overpass, where he was denied food and water for two days.

 

Inmate #42 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman I Unit F-3) for three months prior to Hurricane Katrina. After the hurricane hit, Inmate #42 says he had no water or food in the prison for two days. He witnessed prisoners escape by jumping out windows; those who did were “shot and bleeding.” Inmate #42 states “they had two body’s [sic] floding [sic] in the water in Templeman-3.” When Unit F-3 was finally unlocked (two days after Katrina), the inmates had to “stand in water up to our necks for 5 hours.” Inmate #42 spent two days on the Interstate 10 overpass; during this period he did not have food or water.

 

Inmate #43 was incarcerated in OPP (Old Parish Prison Unit A-2) for ten months prior to Hurricane Katrina. The deputies in Unit A-2 abandoned their posts. Inmate #43 says the inmates in his unit were not fed for five days. He described the living conditions as “bad”, five people to a cell, malfunctioning toilets and no power. Inmate #43 states he saw dead bodies in the water. The prisoners in Inmate #43's unit were locked in their cells for four days while the flood waters were steadily rising.

 

Inmate #44 was incarcerated in OPP (South White Street Unit A-1) for three weeks prior to Hurricane Katrina. Inmate #44 went without food or water for three to four days. The deputies moved the prisoners in Inmate #44's unit upstairs into a small room and then left

them there. Inmate #44 says the deputies “just left everybody upstairs going crazy, cause [sic] they did not get water are [sic] food.” He felt the deputies, “left us in the jail to die.” Prisoners in Inmate #44's unit were breaking through walls and jumping into the water to escape. Inmate #44 says those escaping prisoners were shot at - but he doesn’t know for sure if they were killed or not. Inmate #44 was “very scared” that he was going to drown. “They had people that were in the jail floating, dead from starving from not eating are [sic] drinking water.” Inmate #44 says prisoners were drinking contaminated water, fighting and stabbing one another in the jail. Eventually Inmate #44 was evacuated out of the jail through six to seven feet high water - water so high that shorter inmates had to be carried to safety by taller inmates. Once on the overpass, Inmate #44 says prisoners were passing out from lack of food and water; Inmate #44 himself did not get anything to eat or drink for over twenty four hours. The guard out on the overpass were eating and drinking in front of the inmates. When they ran out of food, Inmate #44 says that some of the guards began to quit. Inmate #44 was eventually sent to Hunt, where he witnessed prisoners fighting and stabbing one another.

 

Inmate #45 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman III Unit C-3) for eleven days prior to Hurricane Katrina. On the day the hurricane hit, the deputies in Inmate #45's unit locked the prisoners in their cells. When the power went out, Inmate #45 began to get weak from a lack of food and water. He “began to realize that we had been left for dead.” On the next day, Inmate #45 says the older prisoners began to get sick from a lack of medication. In addition, some prisoners were able to free themselves and they began freeing other prisoners. Inmate #45 was not freed at this time. As Tuesday night wore on, prisoners began setting fires in order to see–the smoke from the fires made it very difficult to breathe. In order to get air, the prisoners in Inmate #45's unit began to break windows. The next day, out of desperation, Inmate #45 began to drink the contaminated water. The contaminated water made him feel sick. Finally, on Thursday, Inmate #45 was evacuated out of Templeman III. He had to wade through chest high water in order to reach the boat taking prisoners to the interstate 10 overpass. Inmate #45 was given water, but still no food. Eventually he passed out from a lack of food. While on the overpass, Inmate #45 says Department of Corrections officers were “yelling at people, spaying [sic] gas, and shooting inmates with bean-bag guns.” Eventually Inmate #45 was put on a bus and taken to Hunt Correctional Facility. While at Hunt, Inmate #45 says “people were fighting, making shanks, and stabbing people. I was scared for my life.” The D.O.C. officers did nothing, “[o]ne inmate cross the gun line yelling for help, and D.O.C. shot him. I seen someone get stabbed in the face. He was scaried [sic] to run to the gaurds [sic] because thay [sic] would have shot him too.”

 

Inmate #46 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman III Unit F-3) for four months prior to Hurricane Katrina. He was locked in a cell on the first floor with three and a half feet of flood water. An inmate from the juvenile unit managed to free himself. That prisoner came to Unit F-3 and opened all the cells from the control unit. Inmate #46 says that the deputies were on and off their posts and all the prisoners were scrambling to find a way out. Some prisoners burned things for light, while others broke holes in the wall and jumped out to escape. Those escaping prisoners were maced and shot with bean bags by deputies. The prisoners still trapped in their cells broke windows to get fresh air. Inmate #46 did not eat for six to seven days. Inmate #46 says “inmates were having seizures. Deputies hit kick and beat on inmates all on the bridge.” Eventually Inmate #46 was evacuated to Hunt Correctional Facility; while there he witnessed inmates fighting and stabbing one another. Inmate #46 described his two days at Hunt as “[t]he worst 2 days in my life!”

 

Inmate #47 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman III Unit B-4) for four days prior to Hurricane Katrina. The deputies in Unit B-4 left their posts the Sunday night prior to Hurricane Katrina. Inmate #47 was locked in a cell filled with rising flood water. On Monday evening, deputies came back to Inmate #47's unit and moved him upstairs into a small gym with 150 other prisoners. During the move, “[s]ome of the deputies were masing [sic] people and slaming [sic] them in the water.” Inmate #47 was locked in the small gym for three days without food or water. Inmate #47 says inmates on the third floor were causing a disturbance in the absence of the deputies. “There were numorous [sic] fights, people getting stabbed, hit with all kinds of objects, it was just a big mess.” Prisoners were attempting to escape but Inmate #47 abstained because “the deputies started shooting at inmates.” On Wednesday evening Inmate #47 was evacuated (at gunpoint) and sent to the Interstate 10 overpass, where he still did not receive any food, water or medication. Because of the extreme heat, Inmate #47 passed out while on the overpass. Inmate #47 was out on the overpass for over 24 hours.

 

Inmate #48 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman I Unit D3) for four months prior to Hurricane Katrina. Inmate #48 says that the deputies were never on their posts, that “everybody was screaming and making noise but no one ansered [sic].” Eventually, Inmate #48 was moved to the third floor and locked in a cell. That first day the inmates in D3 had nothing to eat and only contaminated water to drink. The next day, deputies brought the inmates water contaminated with bleach. After this, Inmate #48 did not see deputies until he was evacuated on the third day. While on the Interstate 10 overpass, Inmate #48 was given water but not food. He was next sent to Hunt where he stayed on the yard with all the other prisoners. Inmate #48 says all the prisoners on the yard had knives and they were fighting and stabbing each other and the deputies did nothing to stop them.

 

Inmate #49 was incarcerated in OPP (Old Parish Prison) for twenty two months prior to Hurricane Katrina. Inmate #49 was not moved from OPP until three days after the hurricane. He says that the deputies did not remain on their posts. He was not given any food but he was given a “lil [sic] water.” He was not given his medication. Inmate #49 says one prisoner was shot. While still in the jail, Inmate #49 witnessed prisoners passing out, getting sick from the smell in the jail and breaking windows to get air in order to survive.

 

Inmate #50 was incarcerated in OPP (Templeman II Unit E4 2nd floor) for nine months prior to Hurricane Katrina. He says that he was left in a locked cell unattended (the deputies did not stay on their posts) the entire night of the hurricane. He was not given food or water for several days. Inmate #50 says that deputies were assaulting inmates on the overpass, during the evacuation and at Hunt Correctional Facility. He says none of the prisoners were able to get medication during the entire ordeal. Inmate #50 saw one corpse, “I seen one dead body and man that sh*t shook me up!” He is now at Ouchita, a facility that he describes as“racist to the T.” At Ouchita, inmates “get tazed, maced, and bean bagged on a regular basis, and I know that these deputies hate us because they tell us everyday.”

 

Inmate #51 states she was housed in Conchetta Unit 3-2 during Hurricane Katrina. She says she had been incarcerated in OPP for six months prior to the hurricane. Inmate #51 reports that the lights went out on Monday, and she was rescued on Wednesday. From Sunday, August 28 until Wednesday, inmates “was [sic] trapped for four days without food water or light no air.” Inmate #51 reports that the guards yelled at inmates for no reason, and that they had food and water that they did not share with inmates. Inmate #51 states that the guards were in a back room with the door open, and that inmates asked if they could break a window for air–the guards refused to allow them to break a window. Inmate #51 says that the inmates “was falling over one another sleeping on the floor, with no cloths [sic] on that’s how hot it was.” The toilet was overflowing, and inmates were drinking contaminated water from a garbage can. Inmate #51 reports that a Mr. Gussman “said to leave the inmates where they are. My God he left us there to die.” Inmate #51 states that guards were making and receiving phone calls from their family members, but that she was not able to call her family in the 9th Ward to see if they were okay. As of the date of his response to the questionnaire, Inmate #51 still did not know where her family was. When Inmate #51 was rescued on Wednesday, she was given food, water and medication.

 

Inmate #52 reports that he was housed in Templeman III F Side. He was in OPP for one day before the hurricane. Inmate #52 states he was housed in the gym when the water started rising. No deputies were in the gym with the inmates, and after 12 hours the water had become waist-deep. Inmate #52 reports that a few people escaped. At some point, the inmates were moved to an upper and lower tier which housed approximately 35 people. Inmate #52 reports that approximately 100 inmates were placed on each tier, and that the water was chest-high. Inmate #52 reports that a couple of prisoners were still locked in their cells, and that other prisoners helped them out of their cells. The building lost power around midnight, August 29. Breakfast on August 29 was the last meal that the inmates ate at the prison–from that point on they had no food or water. Inmate #52 reports that escaping prisoners were shot at, and that “deputies did assault prisoners.” Inmate #52 reports the inmates could not breathe, and he “thought we were going to sufacate [sic].” Some inmates found a pipe and started to break windows to get oxygen.

After 48 hours on F Side, Inmate #52 was brought to the bridge early Wednesday morning, before the sun came up. The inmates were “told to leave everything behind, and walk out with our hands on our heads. The water was so deep I had to [sic] small prisoners holding on to me. One on each shoulder.” The inmates were taken to the bridge in small boats carrying approximately 8 to 10 prisoners at a time. Once on the bridge, Inmate #52 still did not receive food or water. He reports being told there was no water or food, but he says deputies were drinking water. After approximately 8 hours on the bridge, another boat took Inmate #52 to a bus. The inmates on the bus were reportedly given one gallon of water to share, and were taken to Hunt. When they arrived, they were handed a blanket, two sandwiches, and some water. Inmate #52 reports the arriving inmates were told to find a spot in the grass. When it rained the next day, the inmates had to sleep where it was wet. On Friday morning, Inmate #52 reports being transported to LSP, where he is currently being held.

 

Inmate #53 reports that she was housed in Conchetta Unit 1-2 during Hurricane Katrina. She arrived in OPP in December 2004. Inmate #53 states that on Friday, August 26, DOC. had buses already available, and that a deputy informed the inmates to pack a small plastic bag and to be prepared to evacuate at any moment. That evening, Inmate #53 reports that the phones were turned off. On Saturday, August 27, the inmates were told that they might have to be moved upstairs. The power went out on Saturday, and continued to be run off generators. The inmates had breakfast on Sunday, August 28, and that was their last meal. Mid-morning, a captain told Inmate #53 to use a squeegee and push broom to push rising water that was “coming from outside and from inside sewer drains.” Inmate #53 reports that she looked for sandbags to block doorways and she saw none. Inmate #53 states she was then ordered to move deputies’ personal belongings to the 3rd floor classroom. She states that when she asked about the food in the 1st floor kitchen, she was told not to worry about it. Inmate #53 states that she helped inmates in locked dorms on 1-1 moved their belongings and mattresses to 2-2, and also helped her dorm mates move belongings and mattresses to 2-1. Inmate #53 states that when she asked if she could help with the food downstairs, she was told to go to dorm 2-1, which was then locked. The inmates received no food, and the generators then went down. “No power, no windows, no air, no food after nightime [sic] we were issued a 1/4 cup of water from a trash can (used) filled with water from the faucet previously.” The running water was turned off on Sunday afternoon, and Inmate #53 was covered in sewer water and dirt from moving mattresses and belongings. Water was running from the roof down the elevator shaft and onto the 2nd floor. Inmate #53 saw no dead bodies, but she reports hearing of some dead bodies on the deputies’ radios. Inmate #53 was also not maced, but she states that she was locked in the dorm during a riot, and that she heard officers say: “‘Let them kill each other.’” Inmate #53 states that she was not given medication, even after she passed out on Tuesday, August 30.

 

Inmate #54 was housed in Conchetta Unit 3-2. She had been in OPP since mid-August at the time of the hurricane. Inmate #54 states that Unit 3-2 did not fill with water, because it was on the third floor, but the unit was double occupied because inmates from St. Bernard parish were placed there. The deputies remained on their posts, “but they treated us with no respect whatsoever.” Inmate #54 reports the telephones were turned off on Friday, August

26. Inmate #54 states that Angola officials rescued the inmates on September 1. She was housed in “an overcrowded, airless open dormitory.” She witnessed no physical assaults on inmates, “but the verbal and emotional abuse that was heaped on inmates was intolerable. We were called bitches, whores, etc. and several inmates fainted because of the oppressive heat, including myself.” Inmate #54 reports that other inmates put cool towels on her face using contaminated water. Inmate #54 states that the generators lost power Monday, August 29 at about 1:30 a.m. When inmates attempted to climb on top of bunks to see the rising water through the windows, deputies told them to “‘Get down, bitches.’” The five toilets on 3-2 were each filled with human excrement, and the smell for three days was unbearable; inmates had no food or water for 2 and a half days. Inmate #54 reports that she saw about 12 fellow inmates being denied medication.  She witnessed no escapes and saw no dead bodies. Inmate #54 was evacuated to the Broad Street overpass by Angola personnel in boats. She received one cup of water at the overpass, and was eventually brought to Angola State Penitentiary by bus. At Angola, inmates received food, medication, water and personal hygiene supplies. Inmate #54 witnessed no assaults.

 

Inmate #55 was housed in Templeman I B-1 Medical Observation Unit. He had be in OPP for 36 days prior to the hurricane. Inmate #55 was in the first floor Medical Observation Unit–which is for inmates in wheelchairs--because he suffers from “permanent foot drop.” Inmate #55 states that he was housed in an open dorm with 20 other inmates, and that his dorm filled with waist-high sewage water. Inmate #55 also reports that deputies left their post. He reports that “[a]lthough we were told on the Thursday before the storm that we were going to be moved, we weren’t moved until Monday night after the storm passed. Chief Rudy told us we were going to be moved.” They reported that the toilets were backing up on Monday at around 7:30 a.m. Inmate #55 states that all of the prisoners from the first floor M.O.U., including himself, were placed in the second floor gym, which was “flood dark and hot Monday night.” Inmate #55 is 6'0" tall, and when he was brought downstairs on Tuesday morning the water was chest-high. He and other inmates were escorted through the building by five“high ranking officers with the O.P.P. Sheriffs Office with shotguns.” Once outside, Inmate #55 and fellow prisoners were placed on boats and they were taken to the Broad St. Overpass. On the overpass, Inmate #55 remained for approximately 7 hours without food or water.

Inmate #55 reports that he “personally was maced by a member of the Special Investigation Division (S.I.D.) a unit with the O.P.P. Sheriffs [sic] office. The mace was sprayed on a group of inmates “several times who were seated on the Broad Overpass!” Once he was on the Broad St. Overpass, Inmate #55 reports seeing “prisoners breaking out windows on the 2nd & 3rd floors, waiving blankets yelling for help.” Inmate #55 “personally saw 6 prisoners jump to the water below from the floors mentioned.” Inmate #55 states that “[a]fter the shooting stopped there was a prisoner with a big whole [sic] in his left upper back bleeding very bad being dragged up the Broad Overpass where we were seated.” Inmate #55 describes they evacuation as “a total mess.” “Once it was time to get on the bus to be transferred we were flexcuffed very tight.” After 100 yards, the inmates had to leave the first bus and water through waist-high water to a second bus. Inmate #55 tried to tell the D.O.C. officers about his medical condition, and he was told to “shut.” Inmate #55 was carried by other inmates who were also flexcuffed. Inmate #55 was placed in Hunt Correctional Facility, where he received water, a spoiled sandwich, and a blanket. He was placed in a tent, and stayed there in the rain

 

Inmate #56 was housed in Templeman II Unit E-1 during the storm, and he had been in OPP for approximately 20 days prior to the hurricane. Inmate #56 reports that his unit lost power on Monday morning. Inmates were very anxious, in part because there were “no sheriffs visible. It seems they’ve abandon [sic] their posts.” By mid-morning on Monday, “the air is foul. We can’t flush our toilets or take a shower because they are tied into the electricity.” Inmate #56 reports that he had not eaten since Sunday morning, and inmates began panicking and rioting–yelling for the guards’ attention. SID entered several dorms spraying mace and shooting bean bag guns; they demanded silence. This was the only time during the day that Inmate #56 saw officers. That evening, Inmate #56 reports: “My head is killing me because of the toxic air. My stomach is empty and I am experiencing symptoms of dehydration.” No food was delivered on Tuesday, and Inmate #56 states that “[n]o deputies are at their posts. I am totally dejected. When I look at my fellow inmates all I can see is defeat in their eyes.” Inmate #56 is evacuated at approximately 5 p.m. Tuesday evening. He states that while being evacuated, “I have no idea that what is on the other side of the door will continually haunt me all the days of my life.” When the deputies escorted the inmates to the lower levels of the prison, “the noxious odors hits [sic] us dead on. Then the pools of water appear. We are forced into it at gunpoint.” Inmate #56 reports that he could see gasoline, used blood bags, feces, and needles in the water. Once he entered the water, “it is well to my shoulders. Underfoot I hit objects I cannot possibly identify.” Inmate #56 reports that this lasted “well over 5 hours.” When he arrives on the Broad Street overpass at around 10 p.m., he sees thousands of inmates lined in a close sitting position with guards circling them. The next morning, someone next to him stood up to stretch. “Instantly a guard runs over a [sic] pepper sprays the group of us. My eyes burn, my face is on fire. They leave us that way without water.” When inmates ask for permission to use a restroom, they are told to urinate and defecate on themselves. Throughout the day, guards are drinking bottled water, but inmates are given none. Inmate #56 reports seeing other inmates maced, shot at with bean bag guns, and tasered. He states that he “saw an old man being attacked by police K-9s simply because his limbs became numb and he needed to stretch.” At approximately 10 p.m. on Wednesday he is relocated to a section of I-10, where he is given one bottle of water and still no food, despite seeing 2 trucks full of both food and water. After several more hours, he was placed on a bus for Hunt Correctional Facility. Once he arrived there, he received some food and a blanket, and was placed on the wet law. Eventually he was transferred to Riverbend, where he is finally allowed to shower and is given his third meal in six days.

 

Inmate #57 reports being housed in HOD Unit 3 during the hurricane. He had been at OPP for 59 days prior to the hurricane. Inmate #57's cell did not fill with water. He reports that prisoners were unable to open cells because the ranks and deputies handcuffed the cells. Inmate #57 also states that SID officers and deputies shot a man on the 4th Floor claiming that he was out of his cell. Inmate #57 states that there “was no need for that because they still had an outside cell door where you cannot even touch a deputy.” Inmate #57 states that he knows a man on the 3rd floor was shot because Inmate #57 heard the shots. Soon after he heard the shots, Inmate #57 reports that the top rank in HOD came to Inmate #57's floor laughing, and saying that “the same would happen to us if we get loose from our cells.” Inmate #57 states that he was maced when he asked questions about food and water. The power went out in his building at 2 a.m. on Monday. When he was being evacuated, Inmate #57 reports seeing SID officers drinking bottled water that was never given to the inmates. He says “the main S.I.D. officer even kicked a 40 year old man because he did not want to sit down in the contaminated water.” Inmate #57 reports that he was in the prison for four days and was on the Interstate 10 overpass for 1 day. He did not receive any food, water or medication. Inmate #57 did not see any inmates escape, but from the window of his cell he saw inmates in Templeman jumping out of windows.  “[T]he reason why they jumped out  the windows because one of the Templeman was on fire.” He reports seeing SID officers shoot at least three people, and he states: “I don’t see the reason why they shot those three men.” Once Inmate #57 was transferred to Hunt Correctional Facility, he was given no food until he could “fight my way off the field.” Inmate #57 reports that inmates were fighting each other, and that guards were not intervening. Inmate #57 reports that one inmate was beaten by 10 other inmates, and that when he tried to escape by getting off the field, “he was shot by Hunt’s [sic] officers.” After that, he was placed in the back of a truck and was beaten by more Hunt officers.

 

Inmate #58 reports being housed in HOD Unit Southside 3rd Floor during the hurricane. He had been in OPP for 14 months at the time of the storm. At midnight on August 28, rain and wind began to enter cells 1, 2 & 3 in HOD. Power was immediately lost, but it was backed up by a generator for a short period of time before that failed. By 2:30 - 3:00 am, the inmates were frantic and panicking. On the morning of August 29, “there was’nt [sic] a sing [sic] of any deputies, nor were we given nurishment [sic].” Inmate #58 reports that when he finally saw deputies, they were “armed guards, who shot and asked questions afterwards, even as we were behind locked bars.” The guards reportedly refused to answer questions about food, and left once they had handcuffed the cells shut. Inmate #58 reports that some inmates tied bed sheets together to climb down. He reports that guards fired at some of the men, and that they shot one inmate who was attempting to swim to them. When they were going to be evacuated, armed guards were unable to open the cells because the handcuffs that had been placed on the doors had rusted, and the cells were jammed. The guards eventually took the inmates to the roof where they sat with the hands above their heads. One inmate couldn’t do it, so they guards “sprayed mase [sic] in to [sic] the whole crowd our eyes burning from peper [sic] spray. No water we suffered [sic], some inmates paniced [sic] and they were beat [sic] repeatedly.” The inmates were then moved to the garage, where “the smell of gas caused a few men to pass completely out. Guards thought it was funny. Still no medical attention.” On the overpass, Inmate #58 was given a sandwich and a cup of water. He remained on the overpass for over 14 hours, and he received no medical attention. He was taken by bus to Hunt where he was given a blanket and had to sleep outside in the rain and muddy water. He did not eat until the next day when he had a sandwich. Inmates were verbally abused repeatedly during this period. He was then brought to Angola State Prison.

 

Inmate #59 was housed on South White Street during the hurricane. He had been in OPP for 3 and a half months prior to the hurricane. Inmate #59 reports that the lights went out the first night, and they came back temporarily about 12 hours later. The next morning, water started to come in from the back door. Inmate #59 was told to help place sand bags, and was then sent back to the dorm. Inmate #59 went to bed and was awakened by banging from the cell next door. The water began rising quickly, first over the top of the lockers and then up to the bottom bunk. Inmates were kicking on the door to get the attention of the guards, but no one responded. A guard eventually came to give the inmates plastic bags for their belongings. The water rose above the toilets, and the water was filled with sewage. After 48 hours of this, the inmates were moved higher up to the Fish Farm. They were supposed to wait for rescue, and they still got no food. They were given contaminated water to drink. At 4 or 5 the next morning, officers brought boxes of frozen smoked sausages to the inmates, and they tossed it into the crowd “like Mardi Gras deblooms [sic].” It was not enough food for everyone. The inmates were eventually told to walk 2 blocks in neck-high water until they got to Central Lock-Up. At that point, they saw guards armed with rifles and machine guns, who demanded that they remain still and drop their belongings. The inmates then began to get into the boat. “They hit some us with the muzzel [sic] of the guns and shove some in the back.” Once they got to the Broad St. overpass, they were marched with their hands in the air, and were told to sit back-to-back. “This was all done in a violent and vulger [sic] manner.” Inmate #59 was given no food or water as he sat in the hot sun on the overpass. He was transferred to Hunt, where he ate sandwiches and drank some water. After that he was transferred to Rapides Parish Detention Center. Inmate #59 says he feels the inmates “were tramatized [sic] to the point of true fright and also to the point we felt death would be our next and only consequence of this desaster [sic].”

 

Inmate #60 was housed in Templeman III during the hurricane. He reports that he did not eat for four days and had no water during that period. Inmate #60 also reports that inmates were breaking out of the jail. Inmate #60 reports that he was on the Interstate 10 bridge for 2 to 3 days until he was transferred to Hunt and then Rapides Parish Detention Center 3.

 

Inmate #61 was housed in Conchetta Unit 1-1 during the hurricane, and she had been in OPP for six months at the time of the hurricane. Inmate #61 reports that the lights went out on August 28, and that the water level rose to the top of the second floor, which forced the first floor to move to the second floor. The guards were scared, so they had locked the inmates into the cells and screamed and hollered at the inmates. Some of the inmates broke windows to get air, and also tried to “flag someone down to come rescue us.” The deputies threatened to mace the inmates, but they did not mace anyone. Inmate #61 reports that she had no food and water for 4 and a half days, and that the medications were all on the first floor, and were floating in the water. Some inmates tried to escape, and others left and returned. Inmate #61 reports that inmates broke a window and even burned one part down to get out. Inmate #61 reports that there was shooting, but she was “too afraid to look.” She states that “[w]hile we were being rescued I seen [sic] bodies floating in the water.” Inmate #61 reports being evacuated by Angola officials. Once Inmate #61 made it to the Interstate 10 overpass, she reports that the inmates “were hot, tired, passing out fainting catching seizures.” Inmate #61 reports that she received food and lots of water and was treated okay on the overpass. She reports receiving medication once she got to Angola prison.

 

Inmate #62 was housed in Old Parish Prison Unit C-3 and then C-4 during the storm. He had been in OPP for 35 days prior to the storm. Inmate #62 reports that power was lost two days prior to the storm. During the four days he spent in the jail before being evacuated, Inmate #62 reports that deputies only checked on them four times. The deputies told inmates “I don’t care if you die or kill each other.” Inmate #62 also reports that deputies told inmates to burn out the windows and rip down electrical piping to bust windows. Inmate #62 reports that inmates nearly killed each other with iron pipes. After two or three days with no power, no air, and no guards, Inmate #62 reports that a riot broke out. “Riot squat [sic] stormed in violently with M-16 & shotguns and held people at gunpoint.” They also had beanbags, electric shields, and tasers. Inmate #62 reports that the inmates were evacuated. He was bused to Hunt Correctional Facility, where he was placed on another bus to Rapides Parish prison before he had a chance to get food. At Rapides he received water and hot food.

 

Inmate #63 was detained in Old Parish Prison (Templeman III) for three days prior to Hurricane Katrina. On the Sunday prior to the hurricane, he and 232 other inmates were brought to a gym facility where some food and water was provided; however, he was not able to get any because the amount was insufficient for the number of inmates. That was the last time he had access to clean water for 88 hours. Deputies then provided an insufficient number of mats for the people present in the gym, and left the facility with no supervision. Water began entering the facility the next morning and was waist-deep by afternoon. Deputies intermittently entered the gym to count the inmates or promise food, or eventually throw some loaves of bread to the inmates and move them out of the rising water. He was brought to an overcrowded cell in a higher floor which gradually filled with water as well. “The water was filthy sewage as people had to relieve themselves.” Some of the inmates became violent and there was no protection. On Wednesday, guards escorted inmates from the cells at gunpoint. “I waded through slimy, grease, trash-filled sewage water up to my neck…” He was brought by boat to the overpass, where he waited for 9 ½ hours without food or water. He was hit in the head, chest, and arm by mace that a guard was directing at a different inmate. Riot police arrived in the morning and fired tear gas that burned his lungs, eyes, and face. He was then taken by boat to buses that transferred him to Hunt Correctional Facility. With insufficient shelter at Hunt, he was forced to sleep on the grass. On September 2, he was transferred to Angola, where he sleeps on a mat on the floor, has suffered physical abuse from guards, and has not had access to phone privileges since he arrived.

 

Inmate #64 was detained in Old Parish Prison (Templeman III) for eleven months prior to Hurricane Katrina. On Saturday night or early Sunday morning, his building lost power, and later lost water. The last meal that he received was on Monday morning. Deputies left their posts after the hurricane hit. Water entered the cells and on Monday evening, he and other inmates on his floor were moved to a higher floor. During the move, SID officers shot at some inmates with beanbag shotguns and hit some inmates in the face. He was hit in the ribs three times during the move. He suffers from asthma and did not have access to necessary medication. He saw some inmates being shot at as they tried to escape. “We were in the Templeman III building without power, food, or water for at least three days. It was total chaos inside the building. Everyone that was not locked in a cell searched the dark building for food. We had to set fires just to be able to see. The building had no air so windows were broken out for ventilation. (Still no staff.) We tried to get the attention of people outside by waving sheets outside the window, but staff members just looked and did nothing.” He and others were evacuated on Wednesday night, but others were left behind because they were locked in cells. During the evacuation, he had to wade through water up to neck level. He was taken by boat to the overpass where he waited another twenty-two hours without food, water, or medical attention. The guards on the bridge “shot at us with beanbag shotguns and pepper sprayed us at random. They stockpiled water in plain sight and refused to give us any. Instead they teased us and gave the dogs water.” He saw one man shot in the head with a beanbag gun “just for standing up” and another “attacked with dogs for being too weak to move.” He was maced three times. After twenty-two hours on the bridge, he was told to climb down a fifty-foot scaffold, taken to the interstate, given a bottle of water and two sandwiches, and waited for buses to transfer him to Hunt Correctional Facility. At Hunt, he had to sleep on the grass “that smelled of urine and there was human feces everywhere.” He lived in this yard for three days in total chaos. “Everywhere you looked there were fights, people getting stabbed, people getting raped… When they did come with food, they threw it to us from scaffolds like they were at Mardi Gras.”

 

Inmate #65 was detained in Old Parish Prison for a month (Templeman III) before Hurricane Katrina. The deputies abandoned their posts Friday before the hurricane hit. He was not evacuated but left on his own through a window that they had removed to allow air to enter the cell. When he escaped from the locked cell, he was shot at a number of times. He turned himself in after his escape and was brought to the overpass after a day. He had no food or water there and some were so thirsty they drank the flood water. Deputies and DOC officers assaulted some inmates who were asking for food and water; one was shot with a taser gun. Inmates passed out around him. He was brought to Hunt Correctional Facility which was violent and chaotic. He stayed there for two days and slept in the yard. He was then transported by van to Sabinz Parish Detention Center where he had been on lock-down 23 hours a day.

 

Inmate #66 was detained for 32 days in Old Parish Prison (HOD) prior to Hurricane Katrina. Two days before the storm, inmates did not have access to phones in the prison and thus had very limited information. He was maced in the prison for asking for food and water. “They even shot up and down the hall. They even shot a couple of guys with rubber bullets for nothing at all.” When he was evacuated on Thursday, they brought him to the roof where he was told to sit for hours in water and sludge with his hands over his head. “We haven’t eaten in days and some of us was just too weak for that. Some of us just couldn’t take it anymore and pass out on the roof.” Eventually, he was transported by boat at gunpoint to the bridge where he stayed for hours before being transported to Angola.

 

Inmate #67 was detained for seventeen days in Old Parish Prison (Templeman I) prior to Hurricane Katrina. He had his last meal on Sunday morning. By mid-morning the deputies had left their posts and detainees were left unsupervised, with guards only passing through intermittently. After the storm hit, the power went out. On Monday night, armed SID guards “came in firing bean bags and ordered us to face down in the slick muck that covered the floor.” They left after removing two inmates who later returned soaked to the chest. On Tuesday afternoon, inmates broke out windows for ventilation. The inmates were moved down two flights of stairs into chest-high water. Inmate #67 waited for 5 ½ hours standing in sewage before being brought by boat to the bridge where he was ordered to sit with his knees to his chest all night. When he asked to relieve himself, he was told to “go where I sat. Anyone who stood up to stretch was threatened at gunpoint.” He waited twelve hours for the bus and “saw countless inmates pepper sprayed.” At some point “about 20-30 riot dressed correction officers and swat team police stormed past us and surrounded us. They started making us on [gunpoint]. I was sprayed for what reason I don’t know.” Inmates passed out around him. When the second night came, he was again told to sit knees to chest. “Anyone who got up was shot with beanbags, or shells from shotguns containing pepper spray. Some inmates were pulled from the crowd, handcuffed, maced and I even saw one man who was hog-tied, maced, bitten by a K-9 while cuffed….I saw others maced at point-blank range.” When he was allowed to leave the bridge, he was moved to the overpass, told to scale a scaffold, and transported to Hunt Correctional Facility. He received two sandwiches at Hunt where he and others were left in a big yard. He was eventually transported again to East Carroll. He was being held on a probation violation and his day to return to court to be released came and went. At the time of mailing, he had already served 65 days on a 30-day sentence.

 

Inmate #68 was detained at Orleans Parish Prison (Templeman III) prior to Hurricane Katrina. The unit lost power before the storm hit. His tier filled with five feet of water and he was abandoned by deputies. He was left locked in the cell for three days. He was assaulted with pepper spray and rubber bullets by SID and OPP deputies. He was denied food or water for three days, and did not receive treatment for chronic back pain and an ulcer that left him in pain. Three days after the storm, he was evacuated out of a locked cell by OPP Deputies who took him through flood water to the overpass where he waited for two more days without food, water, or medication. OPP deputies beat him and left a bruise on the left side of his face and a swollen lip. He was taken to Hunt Correctional Facility where he stayed for three days, unsupervised by officers, outside on a football field.

 

Inmate #69 was detained at Orleans Parish Prison (Templeman III) for two weeks prior to Hurricane Katrina. The guards opened his cell on Monday morning and about 20 prisoners ran into the hallway. An SID officer came to the hallway, maced and tasered inmates who were chanting, “we want food!” SID fought the inmates back into the cellblock. Inmate #69 ate once on Monday morning, and resorted to eating mustard packs with his cellmate at night. On Tuesday, about forty inmates from Templeman I and II were brought into Templeman III. They told of neck-high water and dead people. On Tuesday, Templeman lost electricity, ventilation, and running water. Guards abandoned their posts. Some inmates broke glass to enter the hallway. He had no ventilation and it was so hot that “the walls were sweating.” Some of the inmates who had already broken into the hallway passed a crowbar to allow him to break the window to allow some ventilation in. Some inmates were able to break a hole in the gym and swim out into the flood waters. He heard that the inmates that were swimming out of the cell were being shot at and could hear the shots being fired and helicopters overhead. His “cellmate waved a white sheet out of our cell window. It was a cry for help. Nobody helped us, but the prisoners in the dayroom. We were abandoned, like we was not human.” Some were burning plastic plates to create light, but they also created a lot of smoke. Some inmates were able to break Inmate #69's cell door open. “The cell block smelled like urine and defecation. Broken glass was everywhere.” On Wednesday morning, SID came with guns, mace, shields, and tear gas to evacuate the inmates. They verbally assaulted the inmates. He had to walk downstairs in five feet of water and was brought to the overpass, but given no food or water and forced to sit in 100-degree heat. The guards themselves, however, had drinking water. When people asked for food and water, guards swore at them and maced them. Guards also allowed dogs to bite people and sprayed tear gas on inmates, including him. At night, he was transported from the Broad Street Bridge to the Mississippi River Bridge down the scaffold. He was forced to sit there and was finally given food and water on Wednesday night. Prisoners were still being maced on the bridge at that point as they began to be taken to Hunt Correctional Facility. He slept outside on the ground at the Hunt prison yard without a blanket. He was provided food and water at Hunt. He was told he would be brought to another facility with an opportunity to bathe, eat, and sleep; but was only transported to another prison yard at Hunt. On Friday, buses brought inmates to other facilities. In the process of being transferred, prisoners were getting stabbed in fights.

 

Inmate #70 was detained at Orleans Parish Prison (Templeman I). The telephones were cut two days before the storm. There was no electricity or ventilation. Deputies left their posts. When inmates were beating the doors and walls, deputies arrived and maced and beat prisoners, but did not provide any food or drink. On the second day, the deputies returned to move the inmates. They walked into chest-deep water and had to stand there for several hours. “Deputies are pushing some prisoners down in this water, spraying mace, shooting beanbags at some prisoners while other prisoners are around in hitting the wrong prisoners.” In some areas, the water was so deep, he had to walk on his toes to avoid swallowing water. He and other inmates were then evacuated by boat to a bridge, where he waited for a day and a half. On the bridge, “deputies was making [sic] prisoners just for standing up. Other correctional officers was making [sic] there [sic] dogs bit [sic] prisoners for no reason.” Though deputies and officers were eating and drinking, they would mace or hit with the taser inmates who asked for water or food. On the bridge, he saw prisoners waving white rags out of their cell windows yelling for help. “Prisoners was [sic] being thrown in the water for passing out by the order of the correctional officer.” He was brought to Hunt where he was made to sleep in the mud and not allowed a bath until September 3 when he was at Bossier Correctional Center. At Bossier, the officers would spray mace in a prisoner’s face for asking to speak with the warden. At Bossier, prisoners were verbally and physically abused and denied basic essentials. On September 29, he was brought to Richwood Correctional Center

 

Inmate #71 was housed in OPP (Templeman III Unit F-3) for three months prior to Hurricane Katrina. He went without food and water for several days. His cell filled with water and he was eventually moved to a higher floor. Prisoners were helping each other out of their cells and then they would venture off in search of food. Inmate #71 says that Special Investigations Division deputies were assaulting inmates. He claims that they “handled three inmates really bad” because one inmate cursed at the officer. The power went out the day of the hurricane and after that inmate #71 says “we suffered like slaves.” After two days passed, inmate #71 was evacuated to the Interstate 10 overpass. He spent sixteen hours on the overpass and at no point was he given food or water.

 

Inmate #72 was housed in OPP prior to Hurricane Katrina. He was housed on the third floor where 100 to 150 inmates were crammed into a thirty-nine man unit. According to Inmate #72, the deputies left their posts on Saturday August 27th and did not return until Tuesday August 30th. Prior to abandoning their posts, the deputies locked the prisoners in Inmate #72's unit into their cells. When the deputies came back (along with officers from the Special Investigation Division), Inmate #72 says they were macing prisoners and shooting them with bean bags. Inmate #72's building lost power early Sunday morning and received food and water for the last time late Saturday evening. Medicine was not made available to prisoners who needed it. He witnessed prisoners attempting to escape and being shot at by deputies. After three or four days in OPP, the deputies finally came to evacuate Inmate #72. In order to evacuate he had to stand in four feet of polluted flood water for about three hours. Once Inmate #72 reached the Interstate 10 overpass, prisoners were again shot with bean bags and maced. After three to four hours, Inmate #72 was taken to Hunt Correctional Facility where he was placed on a yard with thousands of other inmates. Inmate #72 witnessed stabbings and fights out on the yard and the officers refused to intervene or listen to prisoners’ complaints.

 

Inmate #73 was housed in OPP prior to Hurricane Katrina. Inmate #73 has a plate in his hip and says that he developed a major infection because of the seven foot high flood waters. He says he went three or four days without food, water, medication or assistance. Inmate #73 says the staff members “ran out and left me to die, and beat me and mace me....” He was eventually evacuated to Hunt Correctional Facility where he slept on the yard and there were stabbings, fights and a lack of medical care. Inmate #73 is now housed at Wade where he is unable to get pain medication for the condition with his hip.

 

Inmate #74 was housed in OPP (Templeman II Unit F-1) for approximately six weeks prior to Hurricane Katrina. He was housed on the bottom level of the jail and there was flood water up to his waist. After the storm, Inmate #74's unit had no ventilation, no water, no food and no deputies. F-1 was designed to house 39 inmates and after Katrina struck, the unit was housing twice that number. Due to the lack of ventilation, Inmate #74 says prisoners began kicking out windows to get air to breathe. Inmate #74 reports that many prisoners were getting sick - but there was no medical care available to them. Inmate #74 began thinking of suicide while housed in Templeman II. During the evacuation, Inmate #74 says deputies were macing prisoners and shooting them with bean bags. There were dead bodies in the water. Inmate #74 almost drowned when prisoners began stampeding from the building to the bridge. Inmate #74 says that while on the interstate 10 overpass he was maced four or five times. He was on the overpass for two days and he was not fed or given water to drink.

 

Inmate #75 was housed in OPP (Templeman I Unit D1) for a year prior to Hurricane Katrina. He was locked on his tier for three days without food, water or power. Inmate #75 says he passed out for three minutes, but because the deputies had abandoned their posts, there was no one around to provide him with medical care. When the deputies did return to evacuate inmate #75, he walked through 4 feet of flood water contaminated with gasoline and oil. He now suffers from rashes and sores all over his body, in addition to blurry vision. By the time the deputies reached Unit D1, Inmate #75 reports that prisoners had already begun to pass out. Inmate #75 was transported to the Interstate 10 overpass by boat. His boat turned over and when Inmate #75 made his way back to the boat he was beaten and maced by guards. Inmate #75 had a particularly ugly interaction with a deputy while on the overpass. “I ask a deputy for some water and he told me to shut the f**k up you better be glad you not dead and lucky we came got ya’ll so when he told me that I was p**s off so I told him God Bless you and he turned around and punch me in the face and mace me once....” Inmate #75 asked another deputy for water and was told that there was no water for inmates, only for deputies; out of desperation, inmate #75 drank the polluted water. While still on the overpass, Inmate #75 witnessed another inmate shot several times with bean bags in his chest; the other inmate received no medical care. Inmate #75 sat on the overpass for three days without food or water. Eventually, Inmate #75 was transferred to Hunt Correctional Facility where he did not receive medical assistance

RITA

As Hurricane Rita thundered towards him, Garrett Deetz lay terrified and confused on his bunk, locked up inside a cell at the United States Penitentiary in Beaumont.

For the past two days, he and about 1,300 other maximum-security inmates had watched and listened to news coverage on television and radio as the residents of Jefferson County followed a mandatory evacuation order and fled their homes in anticipation of one of the fiercest storms in American history.

The images of destruction and suffering in New Orleans that played over and over on national TV in the wake of Hurricane Katrina less than a month earlier were still fresh in Deetz's mind. And now Rita, which weather experts were touting as even more intense, with winds blasting across the Gulf of Mexico at 175 miles-an-hour, was heading for him.

Inside his cage, Deetz and his cellmate couldn't understand why the warden had not moved them to safer ground.

"We kept hearing on the news that everybody needed to get out," says Deetz, "and I kept telling my cellie, 'Bro, they've got to get us out of here; they're saying everyone has to go. There's no way they can just leave us here.'"

But no one inside the pen was going ­anywhere.

It was around 4 a.m. on September 24, 2005, when Hurricane Rita plowed into the Beaumont area. By then, the storm had weakened some, dropping from a Category 5 to a Category 3 hurricane, but winds still roared at more than 110 miles per hour as sheets of rain fell from the predawn sky.

Suddenly, the lights inside Deetz's cell flickered and went completely dark as he heard the air-conditioning system grind to a halt. All power was gone. Deetz's cellmate had just taken a bowel movement, but the toilet would not flush. The plumbing was shot. A garbage bag held the only drinking water available. Guards had handed out the plastic bags before the storm, telling inmates to fill them with tap water in case the hurricane knocked out the sewer and water systems. There wasn't a scrap of food in Deetz's cell.

At the bottom corners of the only window in the third-floor cell, water was streaming in — not enough to cause flooding, but enough so that everything in the room including Deetz's mattress, sheets, and clothes was getting soaked.

"The window was shaking hard and you could hear the wind," says Deetz. "Even the walls were shaking. It was terrifying. I thought the window was going to blow out and the water was going to come in and we were going to die in our cell."

After the storm, Deetz heard inmates crying out for help. But no one, he says, was there to answer. Deetz peered out his window, and saw nothing but the devastated landscape.

"It was like an Armageddon movie," he says. "I remember thinking, 'Beaumont is gone. There is no Beaumont. And we're stuck in this cell, with bars and a steel door. What do we do?' That was the thing that scared me the most. Nothing compares to that feeling of looking out and not seeing anyone anywhere."

Meanwhile, Deetz's mother, Judith, was frantically phoning the prison to find out if her son was okay. She says it took her several tries to get someone to answer, but finally, an official taking calls told her the inmates had all been moved out before the hurricane hit. Judith felt relieved. And she was not alone. Around the same time, many wives, mothers and loved ones desperate for news were calling a Federal Bureau of Prisons information line. They say operators told them that though the inmates had not been evacuated, they were assured that everyone was safe and well cared for.

Newspapers reported the same story. Bureau of Prisons spokesman Mike Truman, for instance, told the Houston Chronicle four days after the storm that inmates had portable toilets and were getting two hot meals and one cold meal a day.

But now, following a Houston Press investigation, new details are emerging that suggest none of that was true at the maxium security prison. According to Deetz and other inmates, conditions in the days and weeks following Hurricane Rita were ­medieval.

As temperatures hovered around 100 degrees, Deetz and his cellmate were locked up for weeks without any ventilation or escape from the rising tide of urine and feces accumulating in their cell. For two days, they did not receive food, and when supplies finally began to trickle in, there was nothing but peanut butter sandwiches on moldy bread and stale potato chips. Deetz claims he did not get a hot meal for about a month. The small bottles of water handed out were simply not enough to combat the intense dehydration Deetz suffered as he sweat uncontrollably. The paint on the walls began to peel off, and prisoners begging for help and screaming out for someone to open their food slots so they could get some air had trouble breathing due to the humidity.

"We were helpless," says Deetz. "It was the worst thing I've ever been through my entire life."

Asked to respond to allegations in this story, Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci Billingsley in Washington, D.C., and Deborah Denham, executive assistant at the South Central Regional Office in Dallas, declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

In all, scores of inmates including Deetz say they were deprived of nearly every basic human need for several weeks, including food, water, sleep, medicine, clean clothes, showers and flushing ­toilets.

Independently, the president of the local chapter in Beaumont of the American Federation of Government Employees, who represents the federal corrections officers, backs up most of the inmates' claims, telling the Houston Press that conditions inside the penitentiary after Rita were the worst he'd ever endured and that the Bureau of Prisons was to blame.

All the while, the outside world knew nothing of what was happening. Understandably, people believed what prison officials were reporting, that everyone was okay. No one knew that inmates were suffering and that not everyone was receiving proper medical care. Even after the status quo had been restored, still no one knew, as prison officials did all they could to keep the conditions quiet by allegedly threatening inmates and discouraging them from seeking justice.

But two years later, thanks to a class-action lawsuit filed by an Ohio civil rights attorney on behalf of more than 400 current and former inmates at USP Beaumont, all that is about to change.

Attorney Norman Sirak is a bowling ball of a man with wispy, Einstein-like gray hair. He works in Canton, Ohio, alongside his wife, who escaped from the Communist regime in Poland as a child, and his para­legal, who is an ex-con.

Sirak is a self-described liberal and hippie who went to law school at American University in Washington, D.C., where he protested against the Vietnam War.

For many years, Sirak made a healthy living working in the securities field, filing registrations for small companies. Then one day about seven years ago, a client of his who had gone to prison for securities fraud told Sirak about some problems he believed existed in the Ohio parole system. It was then that Sirak's legal career took a turn. He filed a class-action lawsuit against the state's parole board, a case which he is still fighting and is preparing to submit to the U.S. Supreme Court. Sirak has also launched separate class-action cases against the Pennsylvania parole board and the Texas parole board. In the Texas case, the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas dismissed the case and Sirak is currently appealing that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

"Finally I am doing what I think I was always meant to do," he says.

It started out as just another day last August inside the cramped office where Sirak was working on his parole board cases when he opened up a letter from an inmate at Beaumont. The note was from Kelvin Andre Spotts, a prisoner inside the federal penitentiary, explaining how he had filed a pro se lawsuit on behalf of dozens of inmates concerning poor treatment and conditions during Hurricane Rita. A judge had denied class-action status to Spotts's case and now he was looking for an attorney to pick up the pieces. Two years earlier, Spotts had read an article in a legal magazine about Sirak's work for prisoners' rights, and he had held on to it ever since.

Time was of the essence, and Sirak immediately jumped on the case.

"We had a very hectic first five or six weeks," says Sirak, "trying to figure out what happened and to get as many people as we could to join. Because we had to beat a ­deadline."

Before inmates could join the lawsuit, says Sirak, they first had to exhaust their administrative remedy within the federal prison system. That meant they had to file a tort claim within two years of the incident in question. The problem, Sirak says, is that prison officials at Beaumont were trying to keep inmates from filing their claims, and the two-year statute of limitations was almost up.

"It was a real big push to get everyone to file their claim," says Sirak. "But somehow we got it done."

Sirak put an advertisement in the Beaumont Enterprise trying to acquire clients. In one day, he says, the ad drew in almost 70 plaintiffs. To date, Sirak is representing 426 inmates in the lawsuit.

Spotts, who is serving a life sentence at the penitentiary in Beaumont, is the lead plaintiff and Sirak's liaison to the majority of his clients. When the Press asked for an interview with Spotts, Warden John B. Fox denied the request, citing vague reasons of "safety and security considerations."

Sirak, too, has had his share of problems dealing with the prison in Beaumont. In one instance, while he was trying to arrange a meeting with Spotts, the warden's office would not answer his calls.

"When we'd call," says Sirak, "their caller ID identified us as the Sirak law firm. So finally we figured out how to stop displaying our ID, and only then would they answer the telephone. You know, we're experienced people at this. We've been going into prisons in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas; it's not like we're neophytes here. But this was like going to school all over again. They've thrown every rule and regulation they can at us."

Sirak spent months working on the initial complaint.

"I looked into Hurricane Rita and what makes up a hurricane," he says. "Then I did research on Hurricane Katrina, because Katrina should have been a message and a lesson, a look at what can happen."

In the wake of Katrina, the administrators at Templeman III jail in Orleans Parish faced national outrage over their handling of the crisis. According to Human Rights Watch, about 600 inmates were locked inside their cells for four days without food, water, electricity or flushing toilets while floodwater surged up to their chests. Unlike other jail officials at the time, Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman risked the lives of his prisoners by not calling for help in evacuating the jail until it was almost too late.

Sirak also examined how the Texas Department of Criminal Justice dealt with Hurricane Rita. The state has several prisons in Beaumont very near the federal complex.

Two days before the storm hit, Jefferson County Judge Carl Griffith issued a mandatory evacuation order. Originally, forecasters were predicting Rita would strike to the south and west of Beaumont. Texas prison officials had already begun evacuating facilities south of Beaumont, but as the hurricane shifted, so did the state's evacuation plans.

Bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highways full of fleeing residents prevented the state's buses from getting to the Beaumont prisons in time. So state prison officials called in the U.S. Marshals Service, which airlifted more than 1,000 inmates to other prisons across Texas. The remaining prisoners were sent to the Stiles unit, the sturdiest of the three state prisons in Beamont, to weather the storm. Days after Rita passed, many of the inmates at Stiles were then moved to other, better-equipped facilities.

"It was very helpful to see how Texas responded," says Sirak. "They evacuated people before and after the hurricane and showed they took the duty to protect the people they were responsible for seriously. TDCJ did the right thing, and this lawsuit is going to make a bunch of them smile."

The federal prison complex in Beaumont is comprised of four units: a prison camp, a low-security facility, a medium-security institution and the maximum-security penitentiary. In the lawsuit, Sirak states that both the camp and the prison for low-security offenders were evacuated before Hurricane Rita, and inmates from the medium facility were moved out shortly after the storm. It is the penitentiary, or maximum-security facility, that is the subject of the lawsuit.

The next step for Sirak was to determine exactly what happened.

"I had to figure out day by day and week by week what did the inmates endure," Sirak says. "And I did that by reading their letters, drafting questionnaires and then sending it all back to Kelvin Spotts and asking him if there's anything wrong and so forth. I would always get everything corroborated by several inmates before I put it in the ­complaint."

Sirak has constructed a timeline based on all of his information.

According to the lawsuit: On the eve of the hurricane, guards moved inmates on the lowest floor to higher levels, causing some overcrowding in cells. Then they passed out garbage bags for prisoners to fill with water and locked everyone up. After the storm hit, the building was left without plumbing or electricity to run the lights or the air conditioning. For the first three days, inmates received no food and had to drink nonpotable water.

Starting on October 1, inmates began receiving one liter of fresh water and three peanut butter sandwiches a day. Some inmates began experiencing constipation from eating only peanut butter. They still were not allowed out of their cells, and the electricity and plumbing did not work. After two weeks, prisoners were allowed to shower, but the water was brown and filled with debris that stung. Subsequently, inmates experienced rashes and boils on their skin and were not given medicine to treat the problems. After showering, they had to put back on the same sweaty clothes they had been living in for weeks because no clean clothes were provided.

It was not until a month after the hurricane that the electricity was fully restored and the inmates were taken off lockdown and allowed out of their cells for more than a few minutes.

"This was totally senseless," says Sirak. "I think that this mentality is on par with the mentality of the people who ran Auschwitz and all those death camps in Poland. That's honestly how bad I think this is."

It's been more than two years since Hurricane Rita blew through Beaumont, but the corrections officers' union president, Isaac Ortiz, is still storming over what went down inside the prison.

He, along with several hundred other staff, was forced to stay inside the federal complex with his prisoners and ride out both the squall and the terrible conditions that followed.

Ortiz is not part of Sirak's lawsuit. In fact, the two have never spoken.

"When they decided not to evacuate," says Ortiz, "they risked everybody's life."

Ortiz has been working at the Beaumont facility for 12 years. He likes his job, always has, but the conditions after Rita were the worst he says he has ever worked through.

In the days before the storm, Ortiz says that then warden Tim Outlaw and Regional Director Gerardo Maldonado, stationed in Dallas, were aware Rita was coming in as a Category 5 with 100 mile-an-hour winds and surge waters expected to reach 20 feet, which would all but cover the complex's tallest housing unit. In preparation, Ortiz says, officials ordered that the tall perimeter lights be lowered to keep them from toppling and that all vehicles near the perimeter be moved to prevent the winds and water from lifting them up and smashing them against the fence line.

The decision not to evacuate came from management at the South Central Regional office in Dallas and the Central Office in Washington, D.C., says Ortiz.

"The reason they gave us was that they thought the facilities would hold up," he says. "And therefore, they felt like they did not have to evacuate."

Jeffrey Schwartz runs a nonprofit ­training and research criminal justice consulting group in California called LETRA. Following the 2005 hurricane season, the Louisiana Department of Corrections and the National Institute of Corrections, a division of the U.S. Department of Justice, commissioned him to write the after-action incident report for how Louisiana's departments of safety and corrections responded to Katrina and Rita.

"Every major prison has evacuation plans," says Schwartz. "No one is perfectly prepared for everything, and while you can't judge just on the outcome, the real question is, 'Did you reasonably well prepare for predictable emergencies?' If the answer is no, well, there just isn't any good excuse."

The Beaumont federal penitentiary was never evacuated, and in not doing so, says Ortiz, the Federal Bureau of Prisons violated its own emergency preparedness guidelines.

"It's in their policy that when an emergency like this comes, they're supposed to evacuate," he says. "They have evacuation plans in their own contingency plan, and they violated that. You have to hold the entire Bureau of Prisons accountable. They had the means and they had the budget for emergencies...(but) they made the decision and they put us in harm's way when they didn't have to."

In light of the decision not to vacate, it would make sense to stock up on emergency and survival supplies. But according to Ortiz, hardly a finger was lifted.

"They did not anticipate buildings or the fences holding up," says Ortiz, "yet we were still going to be there. And they did not have supplies, food, water or generators. They didn't have any of that. They anticipated that they had enough food in their warehouse that they could manage for a couple of days, but when you lose power, you can't cook anything."

Ortiz says prison officials did not request additional generators or food for inmates or the staff. In fact, if Ortiz and his colleagues had not brought supplies to the facility from home the night before the hurricane, he says the officers would have had nothing.

"What (the BOP) did do ahead of time," he says, "was they had people with buses standing by in Bastrop just before the hurricane came to come in and get the inmates. If they lost the (prison) structure in the hurricane, they were going to drive in and pick up what inmates were left surviving and then take them wherever."

Schwartz says inmates are sometimes prone to exaggerate the truth, but union leaders like Ortiz are as solid as they come.

"What the union is unlikely to do," says Schwartz, "is invent facts that most of their own staff know are not true because their own membership would be very put off."

When Hurricane Rita struck the prison, Ortiz said he felt the walls shake as the rain pounded the building.

"We thought we were going to die," he says. "It was very traumatic for all the staff and the inmates. It was insane."

However, it was after the hurricane that things began to get even more bungled. According to the January/February 2006 American Federation of Government Employees union newsletter, The Government Standard, "Miscommunication and miscues marked the agency's response in the days following the storm. BoP officials turned away emergency generators. Other supplies offered by the National Guard were also turned away initially by management, only to be redirected back to Beaumont."

Ortiz remembers the first days after Rita with disgust.

"I don't understand why they did that," he says. "In those initial couple of days, there wasn't any food or water at all."

Ortiz corroborates most of the claims made by inmates and alleged in Sirak's lawsuit, although his timeline is somewhat shorter.

The power went out for about a week, he says, and many of the generators that were later brought in did not start at first and didn't work properly. Inmates were locked in their cells for about three weeks before the facility was once again deemed secure.

"The facilities are built to have air conditioning," says Ortiz, "but the priority was energy was for the lights in the unit and power for the alarms, so the air was very rare. There's no windows we can use to ventilate the buildings, and because of the humidity, the floors were sweating and the walls were wet. You can't really sleep in heat like that. They went for three or four days without any sleep. It was very stressful for the people at the penitentiary."

Only bag lunches were served to inmates, says Ortiz, and there was a serious shortage of water.

"That's why we couldn't use the toilets for two or three weeks," he says.

Instead, corrections officers collected the plastic bags that inmates had been given to hold feces and urine.

"It's not healthy," Ortiz says. "It's disgusting. And with the heat, oh, the smell."

As an added insult, the Bureau of Prisons refused to pay officers stranded at the prison any overtime, despite the fact they were working 24-hour shifts for more than a week before reinforcements arrived. Ortiz filed a grievance on the union's behalf just after the hurricane, but says he has not yet heard back or seen a nickel in overtime pay.

Ortiz also says that the prison is no better prepared than it was in 2005.

"We had another hurricane that came by this year," he says, "and they dropped the ball on that one. They didn't do any emergency procedures. They're no better prepared today. They've already said that if another hurricane comes, they will not evacuate."

As for what happened with Rita, Ortiz says the Bureau of Prisons "did jeopardize [inmates'] safety. We did put them in harm's way."

Rosalind Burbank Joseph was worried sick. For try as she might from her home in Albany, New York, she had trouble finding out in the days before Hurricane Rita struck what was happening with her husband, an inmate at Beaumont's federal penitentiary.

This was posted on the Bureau of Prisons Web site two days before the storm:

"Hurricane Rita is being closely monitored, and all necessary precautions are being taken to ensure the safety and well-being of staff and the Bureau's inmate population. Emergency preparations and plans are in place, but we do not release the status of possible actions related to those plans before they occur."

Frustrated, Joseph began trying to contact the prison itself.

"I called several times before the hurricane," she says. "The person at the prison would not give me very much information. He did say that they were not going to evacuate. I asked to speak to the warden, but that didn't work."

Then the hurricane hit, and for days all Joseph could do was wait and worry.

The Bureau of Prisons had set up an information line through the South Central Regional Office in Dallas for people to call to get information about inmates affected by the storm. Joseph called in within 36 hours after Rita passed.

"They kept reassuring me that everyone was perfectly fine and they were being treated even better than the people out in the free world," Joseph says.

But Joseph says she soon learned this was a lie.

"One thing the prison did get running quickly were the telephones," she says, "and my husband was able to call me three days after the hurricane. He told me that there was no water, it was extremely hot, it smelled terrible and it was just horrible inside. And during the day, I had been calling the number the BOP was providing for information and they were telling me the opposite, that they were getting hot meals, showers and that the conditions were good."

Likewise, newspapers quoting Bureau spokesmen in the days following the hurricane reported that generators were working and that inmates were getting hot meals and plenty of bottled water and ice.

Union president Isaac Ortiz says it was all a cover-up.

"It was B.S.," he says. "Total B.S. But see, the public relations person, they get a speech or whatever information they can give to the public, and it's already been screened before they tell anybody. And they're not going to say, 'We failed,' or 'We failed to respond.' They're not going to say they failed at anything. They're going to say everything is fine...I mean, this is Federal Bureau of Prisons, they don't tell on themselves."

According to Sirak, this was just one of several cover-ups.

He alleges that the prison suddenly began charging inmates $3 for medical attention whereas before the storm the same care had been free. Sirak claims the reason was to keep inmates from seeking medical help and to conceal injuries inflicted during and after the hurricane, in order to bury any proof that inmates were being treated poorly.

"Ajivin," who says he cannot use his real name because of the rules of the halfway house where he lives in Connecticut, claims he saw firsthand the lack of ­medical care after Hurricane Rita.

"Everyone was mad and kicking the doors," he says, "and people had medical problems and medical would come like once a day, maybe. And [the staff] didn't have the right medicines."

Ajivin says his cellmate had diabetes and was used to getting insulin shots and having his blood sugar checked twice a day.

"He got his insulin a day after (Rita hit), but he didn't get it every day," says Ajivin. "I was giving him the little bit of food that I did get, trying to keep his pressure up. Because it kept dropping. I didn't even eat, I fasted about three and a half days, giving him my peanut butter to keep his pressure up. The storm was nothing; it was the aftermath that was horrible. I knew his pressure was dropping because he kept getting the shakes and I kept telling him, 'Hold on, hold on.'"

After about two weeks, says Ajivin, inmates emerged from their cells for the first time and were allowed to shower.

"Everybody looked crazy," he says. "Everybody grew hair all over, their eyes were wide open, looked like they were starving, stinking, people had skin rashes from the feces. I was like, 'Man, I can't believe this.'"

The shower water, he says, "stung and was brown and smelly. But we had no real choice; either take it or don't take a shower at all. And then we had to put on the same clothes again."

He and other inmates say the only medicine they received was a couple of aspirin.

In the lawsuit, Sirak claims that medical staff refused to perform any diagnosis on inmates with complaints, only offering over-the-counter drugs to treat symptoms and ignoring the underlying causes.

"I think that the medical staff was ordered from above to do this," says Sirak, "to show that everybody is happy and there's no problems here. Their thinking is that if they can't point to any diagnostics, then there's no evidence of any harm happening. They were trying to kill the evidence at the source."

It was about a year and a half after Hurricane Rita that Garrett Deetz decided to try to seek justice. So, he went to the prison's law library, downloaded the proper administrative tort claim to file against the Bureau and filled it out.

The way it works, according to Deetz, is that inmates file the form with the regional office, whose lawyers investigate the claim and then make a decision.

As per the prison's rules, Deetz gave the form to a corrections officer, whose job is to look over all legal mail, who then was supposed to put it in the outgoing mail. Time went by, but Deetz never received an answer.

"A lot of the times they weren't putting them in the mail," says Deetz. "They said they lost my first tort claim, so I had to file another one."

Sirak says Deetz's story is quite common, another example of the Bureau of Prisons trying to silence inmates and cover-up what happened after Hurricane Rita.

According to the lawsuit, prison officials tried to keep inmates from accessing the legal library to obtain the proper tort forms. Then, when and if a prisoner did get the paperwork, staff held the form and refused to send it out.

Enrico Diaz Hawkins is an inmate at the federal facility in Pollock, Louisiana. He was moved there from Beaumont after the hurricane. In a letter he mailed to Sirak, Hawkins detailed the hurdles he encountered.

"Immediately after the hurricane," Hawkins writes, "many of us inmates questioned the legality of our safety, sanitation, and environmental conditions. We were told that all of the administration’s actions were legal and discouraged from pursuing the issue any further with the threat of 'Diesel Therapy'...and the implied threat of bodily harm."

"Diesel therapy," an inmate term, according to Sirak, is when an inmate is shipped to one facility after another, with his personal property never catching up to him. It is considered a severe ­punishment.

"I personally tried to file an administrative remedy form about a month after Hurricane Rita," writes Hawkins, "and was told by my counselor...and my unit manager...that they lost the form and that it was in my best interest not to pursue the matter any further...I was already stressed out from the inhumane conditions that I was forced to suffer through during the hurricane and its aftermath and I was put under further duress by the implied threat from those in authority over me so out of fear and prudence I decided to leave the issue alone until I was far away from USP Beaumont."

Sirak alleges in the lawsuit that prison officials punished inmates by taking them off a good prison job or transferring them to a cell with an inmate with an anger management problem to make their lives more difficult. Sirak also states that prison staff invaded cells and took inmates' legal papers as well as instituted lockdown during which time inmates could not mail letters.

"All of this was done under the radar screen," says Sirak. "For example, no one can argue the BOP has the right to take a person from one cell to another. On its face it's neutral. And all the record shows is the transfer, not that the person's new cellmate is an animal from hell. And that's what's so insidious. They're very adept at doing these things that leave no trace of prejudice."

When Deetz finally was able to submit his tort claim 21 months after the hurricane, he listed the Bureau's failure to evacuate, the dehydration, the accumulation of feces in his cell, the inability to bathe for weeks, the unbearable heat and the fear that he had been left, locked up in his cell, to die.

Three months later, he received a letter from Jason Sicler, Regional Counsel for the Bureau in Dallas. In his letter, Sicler denied all of Deetz's contentions.

"An investigation into your allegations could not substantiate your claim," Sicler wrote. "The review of this matter revealed FCC Beaumont (USP) staff took appropriate measures to alleviate the conditions caused by the natural disaster. All available supplies were issued to both staff and inmates as they became available...Therefore, there is no evidence you sustained any personal injury or property loss caused by the neglect or wrongful act or omission of any Bureau of Prison employee...."

Deetz couldn't believe it.

"I was like, 'That's crazy,'" says Deetz. "They denied everything. It makes you think, 'They screwed us and they're going to get away with it.' It makes you think, 'They're the federal government and you can't beat them.'"

"Thank God for Norman's lawsuit.”

“Due to the loss of electrical power as well as the lack of potable water and functional plumbing,” the prisoners said they “suffered extreme deprivations” caused by a lack of food, clean water, hygiene items and medical care while being exposed to extreme heat without even a fan for ventilation for several weeks. “At least two prisoners died and others suffered ‘staph infections and other illness, and ... psychological injuries,’” according to pleadings filed in the case. The federal district court dismissed the lawsuit on September 22, 2009, saying “the decision as to whether to evacuate inmates at USP-Beaumont, as well as the decisions made regarding preparations for the hurricane and its aftermath, all fall within the discretionary exception function” of the FTCA. Although the district court found the prisoners had filed a “trenchant and resourceful response” that contained creative arguments, it was not persuasive. The court held that prison officials had “room for choice” as to their decisions, which were “the types of decisions Congress did not wish to subject to judicial second-guessing” because they were “guided by public policy concerns.” See: Spotts v. United States, U.S.D.C. (E.D. Tex.), Case No. 1:08-cv-00376; 2009 WL 3083996.

Houston Press

In the Ramsey Unit, a state facility located in Brazoria County south of Houston, electrical power was lost and prisoners were kicked out of the medical department so TDCJ guards, who could not leave the facility for the duration of the emergency, could sleep in one of the few areas with air conditioning powered by backup generators. Prisoners with medical problems were sent to a small, three-chair barber shop, where licensed vocational nurse Noland, the only medical professional remaining at the prison, presided over a “temporary infirmary.”

One prisoner, Mark Goss, developed a staph infection on his head as Rita neared shore. He showed it to Nurse Noland, who told him not to worry and gave him Tylenol. The infection spread, became bloodborne and caused Goss to experience severe internal pain, but during repeated visits Noland insisted the pain was being caused by gall bladder stones. Goss’ condition worsened to the extent that even the guards noticed, but a lieutenant who was the ranking security officer at the prison during the emergency could only refer him to Noland.

Ten days after Rita made landfall, the mandatory evacuation order was lifted and a doctor arrived at the Ramsey Unit. Upon seeing the near-comatose Goss, the doctor had him immediately transported to a hospital. Goss remained in the ICU for five months; he suffered severe damage to his internal organs, including his brain, resulting in permanent paralysis. He must now use a wheelchair for mobility.

Although not directly endangered by the storm, Goss became one of its victims when the facility was left populated in a mandatory evacuation zone without competent medical providers. Unfortunately, his story is hardly unique. 

IKE

Over 130 prisoners at the TDCJ’s LeBlanc Unit in Beaumont filed a lawsuit after the hurricane alleging “deplorable conditions,” including a lack of clean water and electricity. State officials acknowledged that the LeBlanc Unit, Stiles Unit and Gist State Jail had received notices to boil their city-supplied water, which had become contaminated. Of course prisoners have no means to boil water, so most were forced to drink the contaminated water.

The Ramsey Unit, over 100 miles west of Beaumont yet still in Hurricane Ike’s path, lost power for ten days. The over 100 mile-per-hour winds that lashed the prison for 14 hours shattered dormitory and cell windows and tore ventilation fans and sheet metal off roofs while prisoners sheltered in their cells. After the storm passed, prisoners endured over a week of sweltering heat without so much as a fan to circulate the air.

Prisoners at the Galveston County Jail fared even worse. Despite a mandatory evacuation order from Galveston city and county officials, who warned that those who remained on the island faced “certain death,” Sheriff Gean Leonard decided to have over 1,000 prisoners ride out the hurricane in a single-story jail.

The electricity went out, water and sewage utilities failed, and food ran short – leaving hungry and thirsty prisoners wading through ankle-deep contaminated water that had backed up through the sewage system. The storm ripped air conditioning units off the jail’s roof, opening large holes through which waterfalls of rain poured in. One prisoner said the storm sounded “like a freight train” when it hit the facility.

As rain flooded the jail though damaged roofs and leaky wall seams, ceiling tiles became saturated and collapsed. Black mold began to grow on the water-saturated walls and ceilings.

Medical treatment was unavailable for weeks following Hurricane Ike. Diabetics went without insulin, while prisoners who developed infections and rashes were denied antibiotics. The city’s water was not potable for over two weeks after Ike made landfall, and prisoners – who were given only about 12 ounces of water a day in the sweltering heat – were forced to drink contaminated water tricking from the taps.

A few weeks after the storm, two portable toilet units were brought in to act as restroom facilities for 288 prisoners in six, 48-man “tanks.” Prior to that, the prisoners had been forced to defecate in overflowing toilets and later use improvised plastic-bag-lined water buckets.

Galveston County prisoners were fed meals consisting of a baloney sandwich and a peanut butter sandwich or one sandwich and a boiled egg for weeks following the hurricane. When sandwiches ran short, they each received two pieces of canned ravioli as their meal. The jail’s telephone system was down after the storm. A few days later, officials allowed prisoners to use the guards’ phone to call their families and tell them they were okay. However, the calls were monitored and immediately cut off if prisoners spoke about the conditions they had to endure.

Just down the street from the Galveston County jail, stray dogs and cats housed at the animal shelter were evacuated before the storm. Yet over 1,000 prisoners, many of whom had not been convicted of a crime, were given no such consideration. 

On September 8, 2008, Texas Governor Rick Perry issued a disaster declaration for 88 counties as Hurricane Ike bore down on the Texas coastline. 

The 900-mile wide storm, with winds in excess of 100 mph “...is now in the Gulf of Mexico and making its approach toward our coast,” Perry said. “The next few days will be crucial for residents to follow the direction of local leaders and to take the necessary steps to protect themselves and their families.”

As Ike passed over the warm waters of the Gulf it was expected to reach Category 3 conditions of 150 mph winds with a storm surge of up to 25 feet. Officials in Brazoria County, which is located less than 50 miles from the coast, issued mandatory evacuation orders to local residents. However, several prison units holding thousands of Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) prisoners in Brazoria County were not evacuated.

Prisoners at the Ramsey I Unit sat helpless before the storm hit. “They turned the electricity off two days before the storm got there and it stayed off for five days,” TDCJ prisoner Jesus Val Verde stated in an interview with PLN. “There was no electricity for the fans so no air was circulating. They turned off the water too and only turned it on twice a day so we could flush our toilets and fill our drinking containers. We should have been evacuated.” 

Prisoners at the LeBlanc Unit, located further down the coast, also had to weather Hurricane Ike. Over 130 prisoners later filed suit because they were not evacuated before the storm struck. They argued that their Eighth Amendment rights were violated when they were forced to drink salt-contaminated water for several days; they also complained of psychological trauma caused by intense, prolonged fear for their lives caused by having to ride out the hurricane.

On December 14, 2008, the TDCJ posted a statement on its website that the “Stiles, Gist and LeBlanc facilities were notified to boil water for a short time after the city’s water system was inundated with salt water from the storm surge.” What prison officials apparently hoped the public wouldn’t realize was that prisoners do not have the equipment to boil water. 

Initially, all of the prisoners’ claims were included in one case filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, but federal Magistrate Judge Keith Giblin ordered the cases to be handled separately, citing security concerns if all the prisoners had to appear in court at the same time. He was also troubled that the prisoners planned to represent themselves – but apparently not troubled enough to appoint counsel for them.

The TDCJ continued its propaganda efforts with an article in the San Marcos Daily Record describing how over 1,300 prisoners from the Stevenson Unit in Cuero were evacuated to the McConnell Unit in Beeville and the Connally Unit in Kenedy. In reality, the McConnell Unit is located closer to the coast than Stevenson. None of the three units were affected by the storm. 

Galveston, just up the road from the Ramsey Unit, took a direct hit from Hurricane Ike. Flood waters rose to 7 feet in the district that included the county jail. Galveston County Sheriff Gean Leonard disregarded evacuation orders and left more than 1,000 prisoners locked inside the one-story facility, located less than a mile from the coastline.

Just days earlier, Galveston’s city manager warned residents that remaining in the city was unsafe, and the National Weather Service predicted that anyone taking shelter in one-story buildings faced almost “certain death.”

The jail operated on a skeleton crew, as most of the staff had been evacuated. The electricity went out and water was scarce as prisoners sat in fear for their lives.

“Mom. I’m worried, scared and hungry,” one jail prisoner told his mother. “All of us are here cramped into this little room on the first floor. The flood waters are rising and we’re not going to evacuate.”

That prisoner’s mother said officials had abandoned efforts to communicate with people on the outside. “I called but they’re not answering the phones. It’s ludicrous they left the inmates there.” 

In the storm’s aftermath, Dudley Anderson, the architect who designed the county jail, tried to work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in an effort to install emergency generators at the facility.

“We’ve been trying to get some power hooked up inside the justice center ... [but] FEMA won’t turn loose of the generators until they inspect the area themselves,” said Anderson. “They keep saying that will be tomorrow. I’ve heard that for days.”

Anderson also stated that he had talked to someone from FEMA who “seemed to think we were asking for too much.” He noted that the weather and the prisoners were the only ones cooperating with his efforts to restore power at the jail. The prisoners were helping him do the work, and the storm had shrunk to only 600 miles wide when it hit shore. 

According to Anderson, poor air circulation at the jail due to no electricity could contribute to the growth of mold and mildew, and worsen the existing problems of lack of water and sanitation. For several days prisoners were not allowed to wash their hands or take a shower while they slept on mattresses less than a foot apart. 

“They’re just sitting there, they’re desperate, it’s disease waiting to happen,” said Shirley Rutledge, whose son was held at the jail.

At least 22 Galveston jail prisoners filed pro se lawsuits in state district court, raising claims of deplorable conditions and insufficient drinking water. However, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards had toured the facility approximately ten days after Hurricane Ike, and noticed no problems. “I didn’t find anything that put the inmates in harm’s way,” stated Adan Munoz, the Commission’s executive director.

Further inland, police in Austin and San Antonio went from shelter to shelter rounding up released sex offenders on parole who had been displaced by Hurricane Ike. Austin police evicted three sex offenders staying at shelters with 1,300 other people. 

“I have no idea where they went [after being put out] but they’re not allowed to come back,” said Austin police detective James Mason. 

Matt Simpson, a policy strategist for the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the sex offender eviction policy “mystifying,” and observed that “[i]t’s the opposite of keeping track of people.”

San Antonio rounded up nine sex offenders and sent them to an undisclosed facility. Statewide, about 18 sex offenders were identified at evacuation shelters and another 1,000 sex offenders on parole were sent to prisons and halfway houses.

Back on the Gulf coast, state prison officials scrambled to deal with the extensive damage done to the TDCJ’s main hospital. The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) is responsible for the medical treatment of 80 percent of Texas prisoners. The main hospital, with 365 beds, is located only several hundred yards from the Galveston coastline.

On November 13, 2008, two months after Hurricane Ike, UTMB officials were still expressing concerns about security as hundreds of prisoners would have to receive treatment in local hospitals while repairs were made.

“It creates a real challenge,” said TDCJ executive director Brad Livingston. “It goes without saying that security risks go up.” Sen. John Whitmire, who chairs the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, expressed similar worries. “I also have a concern about having many violent inmates in public hospitals around the state,” he said. “It’s a very unhealthy situation.” But a perfectly predictable one since Galveston has been the site of devastating hurricanes since at least 1900 when a hurricane demolished the city and killed between 8,000 and 12,000 residents, making it the deadliest natural disaster in United States history.

To make matters worse, Livingston and UTMB officials learned on November 12, 2008, that 3,800 UTMB employees would be laid off as a result of the estimated $710 million in damages to the hospital. Floodwaters reached up to 8 feet in some of the buildings. The hospital’s kitchen, blood bank, and radiology department were almost totally destroyed.  The University of Texas Board of Regents said there would be no money to operate the facility for at least three months, and FEMA money could not be used for wages, benefits, or operating expenses. 

To be fair, it should be noted that Texas is not the only state to endanger its prisoners during natural disasters. On June 12, 2008, over 360 female prisoners in Linn County, Iowa – and the jail guards supervising them – were unsure if they would escape rapidly rising floodwaters from the Cedar River.

The Linn County Jail, which is located on May’s Island, was being pounded by torrential rain. Earlier that morning, before the evacuation, prisoner Melanie Willits had been watching from a third-floor window as floodwaters covered the Third Avenue Bridge. She and other prisoners were evacuated by bus.

“When we turned from the jail onto the bridge, I thought it was over,” Willits told The Gazette newspaper. “At first there was no sound, but as the water came into the bus, it felt as though the bus was floating away. Everybody freaked.” 

Sheriff Don Zeller insisted that the situation was under control and that the jail prisoners had been moved in a timely fashion.

Prisoner Alicia Echols strongly disagreed. “They moved the mattresses and cars before us,” she said angrily. “They put shackles on us and wristbands on us so they could identify the bodies if we drowned. That’s what they told us.” 

“We weren’t allowed to use phones or watch the news,” Willits added. She said jail officials had falsely told her family that she and other prisoners were moved two days earlier, on June 10. They learned the truth when they saw YouTube videos of the evacuation taking place on June 12. 

In Louisiana, the intensity and destructive force of Hurricane Ike caused many to forget that some prisoners were still suffering from the effects of Hurricane Gustav, which had hit the state a few weeks earlier. Prisoners from Terrebonne Parish had been evacuated to the State Penitentiary at Angola when Gustav passed through. The sheer size of Hurricane Ike prevented their return, even though the storm was going to make landfall in Texas. 

The 500 jail evacuees who were sent to Angola were given mandatory crew cuts when they arrived and were housed separately from state prisoners. “They’re pretty shocked when they come here,” remarked Angola Warden Burl Cain. “You get treated just like a prisoner.” 

Cain said his biggest regret was that he didn’t get to put the evacuated prisoners to work “building fences and pushing hoes.” Never mind the fact that they included pre-trial detainees who had yet to be convicted, and thus could not legally be forced to work. 

PLN has previously reported on the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina on prisoners in New Orleans [PLN, April 2007, p.1; May 2007, p.18], and on a lawsuit filed by federal prisoners who were evacuated but later returned to work under unsanitary and oppressive conditions at a UNICOR factory in Beaumont, Texas following Hurricane Rita [PLN, July 2009, p.21]. 

A separate Federal Tort Claims Act suit was filed on January 9, 2008, by more than 400 prisoners who were not evacuated from USP Beaumont during Hurricane Rita. The lawsuit alleges that federal prison officials were negligent in failing to evacuate the facility, and prisoners suffered as a result due to the lack of electricity, plumbing, food, water, medical care, and sanitation. On June 12, 2009, a magistrate judge recommended that the lawsuit be dismissed due to lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The district court has not yet ruled on that recommendation. See Spotts v. United States, U.S.D.C. (E.D. Tex.), Case No. 1:08-cv-00376-RC-ESH.

Apparently, natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods, combined with callous prison and jail officials who disregard the safety of vulnerable prisoners, can create a perfectly dangerous storm. 

Prisoners Not Evacuated, Parolees Rounded Up as Hurricanes Hit

SEPT. 15, 2009 by Gary Hunter published in Prison Legal News September 2009, page 30

Filed under: Conditions of Confinement, Totality of Conditions, Ventilation, Toilets, Sewage. Locations: Iowa, Louisiana, Texas.

Sources: Associated Press, Austin American Statesman, Daily Comet, Dallas Morning News, Gazette Online, Houston Chronicle, Prison News Network, San Antonio Express News, San Marcos Daily Record, www.southernstudies.org, Galveston Daily News, Houston Press, www.mysanantonio.com

HARVEY

COMPLAINT FILED BY THE NATIONAL LAWYER’S GUILD ON BEHALF OF STRANDED PRISONERS

We attach as exhibits to this statement the written accounts of (5) U.S.P. Beaumont prisoners, and (1) U.S.P. Beaumont prisoner family member from the outside community, as indicative examples of the reports we are receiving regarding conditions at the facility in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. We draw your attention, in particular, to the following excerpts:

•       “On the 30th we were only served 2 meals and the noon meal was the last one. We were told when we complained that the extra peanut butter pack served as our evening meal. We were not told at the noon meal that we would not be given food for the remainder of the day.”

•       “On the 4th we discovered that our emails had been taken. There was a 5 email a month restriction placed on our emails without notice and it was retroactive. I was unable at this point to use my email until it was restored on the 7th. At this time we still hadn't received and no access to the post office. I believe it was an attempt to quiet the protestations and complaints by the inmates.”

•       “Throughout this process hot meals and cold water was hand-delivered to the officers which shows that they means to properly provide for us was available however the will was not.”

•       “Thee are a large number of voiceless inmates here who can't speak for themselves, due to their being locked down in 2 or 3 man cells with no water, no air conditioning, and no means of flushing their toilets. These inmates are further incapacitated by the incursions imposed upon their ability to communicate with their families, owing to their being denied usage of the telephone or e-mail.”

•       “Inmates here are totally dependent upon the administration for their safety, care, and well-being. Their responsibility towards inmates cannot be dismissed, or ignored, for the sake of convenience or expedience.”

•       “Electricity has been sporadic with total black-out conditions at times.”

•       “Here at the Low facility we were only given 2 bottles of water the first day that the water supply was cut off. This amount was grossly insufficient to prevent dehydration or to mitigate the possibility of heat exhaustion. We have no air conditioning in the building, and the sweltering heat within these buildings presents a real health risk and health hazard. With the entire city of Beaumont being without water, this has resulted in there being no water for drinking, bathing, or flushing toilets. Toilets at the Low facility are replete with feces that just sits in the commodes because there is no water to flush the toilets.”

•       “The administration ordered Port-A-Potty units; however, failed to order a sufficient number of these units to accommodate the entire number of inmates at the Low facility. There are currently 1,812 inmates at the Low facility. There are 3 buildings at the Low facility, with each building having 4 individual units (e.g., SA, SB, TA, TB). Each individual unit houses approximately 100+ inmates, rendering 400+ inmates per building. There were 8 Port-A-Potty units provided to each building. Each Port-A-Potty unit can accommodate 10 usages, with anything ins excess of this number rendering the units unsanitary. Eight (8) Port-A-Potty units can accommodate a total of 80 inmates per building. With there being an excess of 400+ inmates per building, this number of Port-A-Potty units is grossly inadequate and disproportionately excludes a large number of inmates from its' usage.”

•       “inmates at the Low facility have not had laundry services for 2 weeks, nor commissary services for 2 weeks (to purchase things needed for their personal maintenance and upkeep), nor have they have a hot meal in 2 weeks”

•       “low water rations and living in our own defecation”

•       “when I searched for answers about our such extreme conditions I only found harassment in the form of profanity and passive-aggressive threats concerning never getting out of the cell.”

•       “we were being treated as if we were punished and told we had to earn our way back to normal operations.”

•       “I felt I was going to die because the water was not enough to sustain a 6'2, 235 lb body. when I passed out the first time my celly called the officer to ask for help and we were met with aggression and ‘you're just faking be a man and suck it up’”

•       “officers from other prisons as far as ‘el reno’ and ‘Bastrop texas’ told us they thought they was ‘coming to help with an evacuation’ but were surprised to find out they came all this way to pass out food and water.”

•       “we have been without water, air, hot food, etc. Instead of them evacuating us they kept us here under harsh conditions.The water we are getting was in square little bags the wasn't even 4 ounces' of water to add up in two little bags”

•       “we've been without showers for 2 weeks”

•       “IT HAS BEEN TWO WEEKS OF BEING INSIDE OF THE CELL WITHOUT WORKING TOILET AND HOT WATER TO WASH UP WITH … I HAVE BEEN LOCK IN MY CELL FOR WEEKS WiTHOUT ANY TOILET AND BE EXPOSE TO MY WASTES, AND NOT BEING ABLE TO WASH MY CLOTHES THAT I WORK IN UNDER SATURDAY 09, 2017. ARE PRISONERS REQUIRED CLEAN CLOTHES AND LAUNDRY ?”

•       “I HAVE BEEN DENIED THE GRIEVANCE [FORM] BY COUNSEL[OR] ON Q-B.”

On Aug. 26, 2017, at 3 a.m., I awake to an officer screaming for everyone to get up and hurry to the second floor of our unit. Thunder crashes in the distance, and raindrops the size of quarters smack the window by my bunk.

Soon, I hear only the sound of 100 panicking women mumbling and shuffling to the latest disaster befalling us: Hurricane Harvey.
 

Now someone is saying there’s a flood outside. Duh. Given the way the Texas Department of Criminal Justice built this place, the sidewalks overflow during even the lightest rain, creating a constant slip-and-fall hazard for the predominantly disabled offender population here.

But this is no light rain. Outside the dorm, I see the water is falling way faster than the ground can absorb it. There is a big lake out there, as far as the eye can see.

To get to the main building, I must wade into it, knee-deep. That’s when I notice the ladies with wheelchairs, walkers and crutches are struggling. One woman is crying hysterically because she is afraid of water, and the dorm boss can’t get her to take one step forward.

An altruistic and able-bodied woman hefts the fearful one onto her back, and away they go. I get behind a lady in a wheelchair and give her a push.

Eventually, we all make it the 75 yards to the hospital building at Carole Young Medical Unit. Most of us live in one-story dorms just north of the hospital, and our only way to the larger, safer hospital building is along a narrow strip of sidewalk outside.

As I enter the air-conditioned building, my skin quickly senses another danger: wet clothes, cold air, and the weakened immune systems of women already facing life-threatening illnesses such as cancer, kidney failure, and post-surgical wound sites.

“What’s going on, boss?” I ask an officer. “Are we in danger? How long will we be up here? Will we be leaving the prison?”

Others fire off similar questions at him, but instead of saying ‘I don’t know,’ and acknowledging that no protocols exist for such a disaster, he simply ignores us.

Within a couple hours, everyone is given dry clothes that don’t fit, and the 300 women from the ground-level dorms plus 150 more from the hospitalized population are crowded into the second-floor hallways, therapy rooms and groups of cells. The officers and nursing staff haven’t been allowed to leave either, a captain informs us.

Apparently, the flooding has made it impossible to get to and from the prison.

Warden Larson comes through, soaked to the bone, makeup smeared and saying something about her car having been swept away.

Meanwhile our unit boss still has not left, slept, or been able to take a break and go out to her car and call her family.

She has to pee, but there’s no other staff to relieve her, so she can’t go to the officers’ restroom in the building next door.

“Just use our toilets,” I urge. “I’ll look out for you in case another officer comes in.”

This isn’t allowed because it leaves the officer compromised should an inmate try to pull something. But it isn’t the policy violation that makes her hold it in.

“No way! That’s nasty!” she says.

“Suit yourself,” I say, and return to my new bed to get some much-needed rest.

Rain continues to fall for the next two days, and the same officers remain, showering upstairs and sleeping in shifts on an empty pod. We’re confined to our cubicles, unable to watch the news and worried about our families; for every meal, we get “Johnny sacks” (brown-bag lunches).

I’m assigned to constantly mopping up the water coming in.

When the rain finally stops, a lieutenant and a posse of officers enter our dorm screaming at us to pack up all of our property in bags or tie it in a sheet because we are leaving in a hurry.

Huh? Where are we going? Why are they taking precautions now? Did they get the memo late?

I begin hearing people complain about not being able to carry all their stuff. I look around and realize that few people will have the strength to carry their loads.

After all, Carole Young’s ground-level dorms house about a hundred pregnant women and a hundred other inmates who are either disabled or on dialysis, chemotherapy or radiation.

The dorm boss calls the lieutenant on the radio and informs him of their clearly overlooked dilemma. Shortly thereafter, he returns with instructions to place our property on our beds so it won’t get wet if we can’t carry it.

The lieutenant tells us to pack just one small bag, with only hygiene products, writing materials, and underwear.

I conceal my coffee, pictures of my family, and a couple of ramen noodles packets inside a pair of panties, stuff it in my bag, and head out the door.

Later, I suddenly begin to hear pieces of information being communicated to the officers and staff on their radios: “Possible breach of reservoir…. Corps of Engineers.…”

“Everyone get in line at the elevators with your bags right now!” the lieutenant hollers again and again.

A woman asks if she can take her pictures of her kids, because it is all she has to remember them by.

“What the fuck don’t you understand about ‘hygiene, writing materials and underwear?’ Gimme that shit.” The lieutenant takes her bag and throws it aside, and tells her to get in line.

I can see in his eyes that he, too, is scared.

Suddenly the pace changes again. Senior Warden Bosco has appeared out of nowhere and begins assigning us places to sit. We aren’t going anywhere. I find a spot on the floor and listen to everyone complain.

A few hours later, an officer who’d been at home makes it to work and gives us the scoop that we’ve all been desperate to hear. Apparently, he says, the rain has filled up the reservoir (close to 4 billion gallons of water) that sits about 60 yards from our prison, and the Army Corps of Engineers thinks it might be about to breach. 

But the buses aren’t coming to get us.

And if they can’t get here, neither can any of our supply trucks. Our food supply is quickly diminishing, and I lose count of how many of our meals end up being bowls of Frosted Flakes.

Fear overcomes me. I keep looking out the window, envisioning a precarious lake rushing at us, washing me away. What if it does? What if the Harvey waters sweep me over the fence and out of prison? Will I be charged with escape for my accidental freedom?

Silly rumors are going around about some high-ranking official, with the authority to make such an order, deciding to let us go. Opening the gates and allowing us to take the risk and save ourselves, if they don’t have the resources to do it themselves.

What would that look like? Four hundred and fifty offenders, many of them disabled, hurrying out the gates and down the highway to evacuate Dickinson, Texas — which is a mandatory order for all the other residents of the town.

But that never happens, of course. Dickinson is a ghost town; ours are the only lives left.

I envy the three nearby men’s prisons that have been evacuated, those inmates safely tucked away on a mat in a crowded gym somewhere far away from Harvey. None of them are worrying about dying any minute.

Later, a woman goes into labor, and the medical staff calls 911. But 911 says they can’t come.

“You’re a medical facility,” the dispatcher says. “Deliver the baby.”

A few hours pass, then the short wails of a newborn are heard down the hall — something many of us have not heard in a long time, and may never again. For incarcerated women, it is among the most sentimental of sounds. While the uncertainty of our own lives hangs in the balance, this Hurricane Harvey baby intensifies our sense of how precious life is.

What Happened When a Hurricane Flooded My Prison

A deluge, terror and a miracle.

By DEIDRE MCDONALD 

Deidre McDonald, 34, is incarcerated at the Carole Young Complex in Dickinson, Texas, where she is serving a maximum sentence of 30 years for forgery offenses stemming from a drug addiction.

FROM THE MARSHAL PROJECT

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/08/02/what-happened-when-a-hurricane-flooded-my-prison

ORIGINALLY FILED Thursday, August 2, 2018 at 10:00 p.m. ET 

This article was published in collaboration with Vice. 

incarcerated father: “We are getting two bottles of water a day thus far. Which is obscene," the inmate said Friday morning over email. "We are getting three brown bags of peanut butter and bologna a day... Keep pounding the social media sites and call Washington, D.C. for the Texas senators, congressman, and attorney general Jeff Sessions who is actually in charge of us. The more information they get the better.”

his daughter: Just because a person made a mistake they don't deserve to be treated as a animal, Animals are treated better than those men. They evacuated all those animals and made sure they were safe, why can't they make sure those men in those units are safe, fed, healthy with clean clothes and enough amount of water; they are people too. My dad has been without running or drinking water today, without AC and with maybe 1300-1500 calories of food all day. That speaks for itself doesn't it?"

MARIA

IRMA

Three years earlier, Commander John Kelly with the U.S. Southern Command had told members of Congress that “numerous [Gitmo] facilities are showing signs of deterioration and require frequent repair”; he specifically said Camp 7 was “increasingly unstable due to drainage and foundation issues.” Fortunately, no prisoners at Gitmo escaped or were seriously injured during Irma.

The same could not be said of prisoners in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), located in the Carribean southeast of Florida. There, around 100 “very serious” prisoners used the aftermath of the hurricane to escape, which prompted the British government to deploy over 1,000 military personnel from RFA Mounts Bay to help keep order. Additionally, the Royal Navy dispatched a warship to assist the BVI government.

Hurricane Irma caused severe damage in Puerto Rico before devastating the Florida Keys. More than 460 prisoners had to be evacuated from the Monroe County Detention Center on Florida’s Stock Island. According to Deputy Becky Herrin, spokeswoman for the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, the jail sustained “very little damage” and the evacuation was eased by mutual-assistance agreements between various law enforcement agencies, sponsored by the Florida Sheriffs Association.

Monroe County was not alone. The Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) was forced to evacuate more than 12,000 prisoners in anticipation of Irma, then a Category 4 hurricane, making landfall. Those prisoners were transported to facilities in northern Florida over the course of three days – the largest evacuation of prisoners in the state’s history.

On September 6, 2017, the Miami-Dade County Department of Corrections sent an email to defense attorneys informing them that it was taking 120 criminal defendants on house arrest into custody for the duration of the storm. The federal prison, county jail and two state prisons in Miami apparently were not evacuated despite being in evacuation Zone B – an area subject to mandatory evacuation.

Meanwhile, in Polk County, Sheriff Grady Judd tweeted that he would station deputies at hurricane shelters to check those seeking refuge for outstanding warrants – a move that was widely criticized for discouraging people from going to shelters during the storm. Sheriff Judd was later sued by Nexus Services, Inc. for subjecting people to criminal background checks before they could enter a shelter. See: Libre by Nexus v. Judd, Circuit Court for Polk County (FL), Case No. 2017CA003170.

“Sheriff Grady Judd knew that people would be afraid because of his statements.... That fear is causing them to not seek shelter, and that as a result people... Men, women, and children, may die. This storm is deadly, and how many people will die or be injured because of Judd’s reckless tweets?” said Mike Donovan, CEO of Nexus Services. “The Sheriff has sworn an oath to protect people, not endanger them. His actions are reckless and unconstitutional, and he needs to be held accountable for his actions.”

Many emergency shelters in Florida refuse to admit sex offenders.

“For the most part they really can’t go stay with family and friends, even if they do have a safe place to go with somebody they know, because chances are those addresses aren’t going to be compliant with the [sex offender] ordinances or with the residence laws,” said Prof. Jill Levenson at Barry University in Miami.

Sex offenders on community supervision in Florida have the option of sheltering in local jails.

“Regardless of one’s history of criminal behavior, we really need to make sure that every human being is protected in a natural disaster, and that sensible plans are in place to ensure the safety of individuals balanced reasonably with the risk they may pose,” Levenson stated.

As Irma continued its path up the Eastern Seaboard, it caused the evacuation of prisons in Georgia, juvenile facilities in South Carolina and the use of prisoner slave labor both to prepare for the storm and recover from it.

About 1,700 prisoners were evacuated from Georgia’s Coastal State Prison, and another 252 residents at the Coastal Transitional Center were relocated. Both facilities are near the coast in Savannah.

The storm caused 31 state prisons that were not evacuated to lose power. The Georgia Department of Corrections tasked prisoner work crews to respond to requests for removal of hurricane-related debris.

In South Carolina, the Department of Juvenile Justice moved over 70 juvenile offenders to facilities in Columbia. The South Carolina Department of Corrections required prisoner work crews to fill sandbags in preparation for the storm.

The FDOC dispatched around 180 work squads of five to 10 prisoners each to assist in hurricane debris cleanup efforts in Florida. Those state prisoners, and their counterparts from county jails, received no pay for their labor.

Following the evacuation for Hurricane Irma, one Florida prisoner, Camilo Quintero, jumped out the emergency exit window in a transport bus in an apparent escape attempt while he was being returned to prison on September 18, 2017. The bus was traveling on the Florida State Turnpike in Palm Beach County when the incident occurred. Quintero was fatally injured and pronounced dead the next morning.

Prison Legal News

FLORENCE

State officials argued that weathering the storm in prison would be safer than evacuations. Meanwhile, they forced prisoners to fill over 35,000 sandbags before it hit. Their decision should be placed in the context of the prison strike that occurred earlier in the year, the call for which originated in that state.

To figure out whether this is a good idea, one only needs to reflect on the experience of prisoners in Louisiana who were abandoned to the floods of Hurricane Katrina. Locked in their prisons, incarcerated people had to survive for days in water up to their chests. Hundreds of people were unaccounted for in the aftermath. Texas prisoners survived similar experiences during Hurricane Rita and Harvey.

The dangers of trapping people in a building from which they can’t escape, in the path of a major storm, are glaringly obvious: flooding, toxic mold, lost electricity, disrupted access to food, clean water, sanitation, and medical care in facilities that can barely provide them on a sunny day. And the idea that prisoners will be safer, when, at the same time, officials demand everyone else must leave, is a clear statement about the value of incarcerated lives.

It would be incorrect to view these choices as mistakes. It’s not that prisons in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Texas overlooked evacuation plans for hurricanes. It is that city, county, and state governments in these states do not feel there will be a political cost if they do not evacuate prisoners.

This all happened at the tail end of a prison strike announced in the aftermath of a violent incident at Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina. The strike’s ten demands were not flashy or new but rather basic affirmations of their humanity. They wanted what we all want: sanitary and safe living conditions, a fair wage for their labor, access to health care and rehabilitation, and the right to vote. But Americans routinely deny prisoners human rights and disappear them without a second thought. We’re taught from an early age that people who end up in prison are there because they’re violent, untrustworthy, bad people. We’re told it’s in everyone’s interest to remove them and forget about them.

Everything we know that casts doubt on these assumptions—such as over-charging, over-policing, over-sentencing, wrongful convictions, racial and economic disparities, etc.—is subjugated to the more comforting idea that we know who prisoners really are, as though they’re all the same.

Reporters have an important role to play in breaking through these myths about incarceration and bringing reality to the surface. In doing so, we can fight the objectification of prisoners used to deny their human rights. Yet because of these stories, barely anyone bats an eye at the struggles journalists face trying to elucidate the experience of incarceration, even though it’s shared by millions of Americans and their families each year.

Just days before the strike, an incarcerated organizer in South Carolina expressed this dehumanization, disappearance, and objectification to me by comparing it to being hidden away in a warehouse—out of sight and out of mind.

“They’re literally warehousing prisoners across this country today,” the organizer repeated to me throughout our conversation. “We’re being warehoused in poor conditions and we’re being exploited as commodities and as people enslaved for profits.”

It’s easy not to care about objects because they don’t have feelings. It’s easier to leave them behind in a storm than people.

We should all know better by now when it comes to hurricanes and prisons. Yet here we are, making the same choices as a gigantic storm strikes the east coast.

It’s the same situation with the demands, many of which have been a part of prisoner resistance for decades. It is atrocious that they still haven’t been addressed after Attica, Lucasville, Vaughn, or the many other acts of resistance that occur regularly but don’t make headlines.

Prisoners are acutely aware that they are easily and routinely ignored. They understand they may have to face down hurricanes year after year even though everyone knows the dangers. They know they have to make the same demands for basic dignities each year, even though that in itself is so debasing. Yet, they continue to resist in defiance of escalating risks because they believe they have no other choice.

“If we don’t speak up, it’s only going to get worse,”  the prisoner told me. “I try to tell prisoners this all the time, we have no choice. Because to say we’re not going to say anything is, to me, continuously being subjected to whatever we’re being subjected to, that we consider unjust, that we consider inhumane. Sometimes we have to understand that we all know that there’s going to be consequences behind us standing up. And that, in itself, is wrong.”

Brian Sonenstein in SHADOWPROOF

"We’re all locked down until after the storm. Not allowed bottles or buckets [for extra water]. They call it contraband. [if heavy rains fell, they could be dangerous for men on the lowest level.] I can remember one flood to where the water came knee-high. Those guys are going to drown if it rains enough.” - ‘Albert’ in The New Yorker

“…after the Lee Correctional incident in April '15, we've been having ongoing demonstrations to bring light of the—what’s going on and how those incarcerated are treated in Columbia and South Carolina in general. One of the major points I was raising during Hurricane Florence is why wasn’t Governor Henry McMaster or Bryan Stirling, our director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections—why were they ignoring direct orders to evacuate those incarcerated?…

They were asked to fill sandbags, not for their own safety, but to protect the safety of the citizens that aren’t incarcerated. They were using the labor of these individuals to protect the citizens of South Carolina and on those coastal areas. They were doing the work that other people—in our, you know, legislator—other people could do. They weren’t trying to protect themselves. They don’t care about how the prisoners were going to fare during the storm. But they wanted to use their labor to have them make sandbags so that no one else would have to do it…

A lot of times when there is like a natural disaster at this magnitude and flooding in South Carolina, a lot of times power goes out. So those incarcerated, they are locked in their cells, because in this day and age everything is like—you know, a lot of these places run on electronics, so when the power goes out, they’re trapped in their cells for hours, not knowing when they’re going to get let out. If water goes out, which it normally does during flooding, because people go and buy water—water goes out, they will be forced to drink out of toilets, because they are not supplied with fresh water…

When we tried to speak with Governor McMaster at a press conference that he was having—he was having press conferences all week—we were not allowed inside the press conferences. We were not allowed to speak with him, interact with him at all. They had security there making sure we got nowhere near him. There was no comment. There was no acknowledgment of anything going on with those incarcerated…

These people are still trapped in cells with power outages. They don’t have access to fresh water. We’re not out of the woods yet. We won’t know until we can actually get down there and see what’s going on and when I have more contact with those incarcerated.

Kimberly Smith - Community Organizer - Democracy Now

MICHAEL

In the months leading up the storm in October, about a dozen incarcerated people housed at Apalachee’s East Unit had written and signed affidavits speaking to what they described as hazardous conditions that violated their constitutional rights. The inmates sent their appeals for help to numerous regulatory agencies. They were redirected to contact the Florida Department of Corrections instead at nearly every turn.

Some of the complaints prior to the storm included a lack of air circulation, quality of drinking water and a lack of a medical doctor to oversee an inmate population of about 1,500. Living conditions worsened after the storm passed Apalachee, according to several inmates there. They complained of standing water and moldy food trays, among other things.

Michael toppled fences and security infrastructure, tore the roofs off ancillary structures such as the library and laundry buildings and punctured the roofs of multiple dorms, which are now covered in tarps. The conditions degraded to the point where officials placed inmates on restricted movement for nearly a week, meaning they ate only cold sandwiches, had no recreation time or access to canteens.

Tensions spiked as a result. In one dorm at the East Unit, they ran so high that a riot nearly broke out. In an unrelated incident, at least one inmate was stabbed.

The near-riot on Oct. 14 was triggered because guards were not providing enough food to inmates in the wake of the storm, according to multiple inmates. A guard entered the dormitory area and was confronted by a large group of inmates, which officials confirmed.

Officials also confirmed that the disturbance was about food and said a special response team dressed in tactical gear responded, quelling the uprising before there were any injuries, use of force or property damage.

An inmate at the prison who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation said that nearly 70 inmates were placed in plastic cuffs after a guard was attacked or nearly attacked over the lack of food being provided. The Times-Union has requested an incident report. Prison officials have not yet provided one.

Multiple inmates reported the stabbing of at least one inmate, and the Department of Corrections on Thursday confirmed the violence but did not immediately provide details.

The Florida Times-Union

IDA

I said, “You know that on the news that they say it’s mandatory evacuation for St. Charles?” He was like, “Man, people are not worried about us. They’re not trying to evacuate us.”

After that call, I haven’t talked to him. He has seizures, so I’m worried. My concern is him not being able to get those meds, and properly have water. At this moment, they’re saying that even if you can get water in St. Charles, you have to boil it. Then they’re saying people might not have lights for a month. You’re going to have these inmates just sitting in there for a month before Entergy can come and fix the lights, or for them to take baths?

These people are not animals, so don’t treat them like that. They’re humans in there for their wrongdoing.

I’ve been reaching out to the sheriff, the warden, the jail system. If you call the jail, it’s going to go doot-doot-doot and hang up. No communication at all. So now it’s just a waiting and guessing game till I’m able to get there, because I’m not getting the answers that I need.

Normally, my husband would call nonstop. I’ll put $100 on the phone to try to last for a week, and my husband will burn it up in one day. He’ll ask, “What’re you doing?” or say, “Oh my god, I can’t get y’all out of my head.” He just wants to clown around with his kids, because he’s been in there for the birth of our one-year-old son and this new baby. So he wants to be able to hear them play around. We’ll sit around and listen to the baby, try to talk to him.

His kids hear me trying to figure out what’s going on with their dad. They’re concerned. My 4-year-old son was crying. He’s in school, but today he didn’t go because he was too frustrated. He said he wants his dad to come home, or he wants him to be okay. I told him, “Just ask God.” We always tell him to go to God about anything. I was like, “Dad’s gonna be okay. Right now, maybe it’s just the power. But hopefully someone’s gonna reach out.” We don’t want to think negative. We always want to think positive about everything.

I want to know, is my husband okay? Is everyone okay? All the inmates. If they don’t have power and water, are you going to move them to where they can have power and water and for them to contact family? I’m not sleeping, I’m not going to work, because I’m concerned. To not be able to hear his voice is hurting me.

- Sadadra Davis, whose husband is incarcerated in the Nelson Coleman Correctional Center, a jail that holds up to 600 people in St. Charles Parish, about a half-hour west of New Orleans, in Mother Jones