Trapped In The Floods With Floodwaters Rising, Prisoners Wait for Help in Floating Feces
THE FLOODING IN Dixie County , Florida, began in July, brought on by Tropical Storm Elsa. Then the rains kept falling. By August, the ground was saturated, and the semirural county was underwater. At the Cross City Correctional Institution, the prison administration repeatedly canceled visitation hours throughout July. As August progressed, the yard between buildings filled with water. Classes and religious services were scrapped. On the main unit, fetid water started coming up through the drains, said DaRon Jones, who is incarcerated at Cross City. Guards told all the prisoners to pack what they could into a pillowcase and prepare to evacuate, but Jones spent hours locked in his cell with the filth. “The water was close to ankle-deep, with human waste floating by as we were fed in our cells,” he said. “The smell was unlike anything I have ever encountered.” Police watch over prisoners from the Orleans Parish Prison who were evacuated due to high water in New Orleans When they were fin...