Prisons Are The Last Thing On Society’s Mind During a Catastrophe
But that’s not different than any other day.
By: Demeter V Delune
Hurricane Helene barrelled through the East Coast last week and dumped an inordinate amount of rain on places that either couldn’t afford more water or places that just were unprepared for that kind of water — like Western North Carolina, where Damian has been housed since 2021.
It’s been a week since I heard from Damian. I finally spoke to him for the first time on Thursday. Although I got some information from a friend, who in turn got it from someone she knew, I learned once I spoke to Damian that most of what she was told was inaccurate.
The prison lost power on Friday overnight and as of Thursday morning, it never returned. They also had no running water. Each inmate was allowed eight ounces of water per day.
Yes, eight ounces per person per day. That’s all for a full week.
No power, no water — no hot meals.
While it’s difficult to transport inmates on a good day, and even more so after a natural disaster, you’ll never convince me it made more sense to wait until the storm came through and destroyed entire towns to move these men across the state than to do so beforehand to safer…
