Hurricane Milton could turn Florida prisons into death traps

As Hurricane Milton barrels toward Florida’s Gulf Coast, concern grows not just for coastal residents, but for a often-overlooked population: prison inmates. Recent history has shown that incarcerated individuals face heightened risks and challenges when natural disasters strike, often with little recourse or ability to ensure their own safety.

Hurricane Milton, currently a Category 4 storm with sustained winds of 145 mph, is expected to make landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast late Wednesday. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stated, “We are bracing and prepared to receive a major hit.” For prison officials, this presents a critical decision point: evacuate and risk security issues, or shelter in place and potentially endanger inmates.

Despite the looming threat, several Florida jails and prisons are refusing to evacuate their residents ahead of Hurricane Milton, even though they are located in evacuation zones. Manatee county jail, which houses 1,200 incarcerated people and is located in the path of the hurricane, will not be evacuating despite falling within the Zone A evacuation area. Zone A could face a storm surge of up to 11 feet and is supposed to be evacuated first, according to the Manatee county evacuation guide.

Other facilities in Sarasota, Hernando, Pasco, Charlotte, and Lee counties have also announced they will remain in place during the storm. This decision has left family members of incarcerated individuals deeply concerned about their loved ones’ safety.

Sheriff Tommy Ford of Bay County, who chairs the Florida Sheriffs Task Force, explained some of the challenges in evacuating large jails to the New York Times: “Finding housing for 1,000-plus inmates gets very difficult, and transportation raises safety concerns. So it may be better to shelter in place,” he said. “Most jails are very hardened facilities.”

Julie Reimer, who has relatives in both the Charlotte and Hardee correctional institutions, expressed her fears to 10 Tampa Bay. “When my son was sentenced, he was not given a death sentence,” she said.

In the meantime, prisoner advocacy groups are calling for action.

The issue is far from isolated. In 2011 alone, there were 1,500,000 prisoners held in over 3,300 Federal, State and County jails throughout the United States. That same year saw 242 Federal disaster declarations signed by the President, each occurring in a State or County where a prison was located, with several directly affecting prison populations.

The scale of incarceration in the U.S. magnifies this problem. According to a recent report in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH), “The United States contains 25% of the world’s incarcerated population despite making up less than 5% of the world’s overall population.”

Evacuation dilemmas amid extreme weather

One of the primary issues facing correctional facilities during hurricanes is whether to evacuate. This decision is fraught with logistical challenges and security concerns, especially as storms like Milton intensify rapidly.

The consequences of poor decision-making can be severe. During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Orleans Parish Prison chose not to evacuate its approximately 6,500 inmates. When the levees broke, many cells flooded. Prisoners reported standing in chest-high water for days, with no food, water, or power. Some inmates were left locked in their cells as waters rose.

According to a 2006 report by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), prisoners were told they would be shot if they tried to escape from the flooding building.

“The prisoners inside the Orleans Parish Prison suffered some of the worst horrors of Hurricane Katrina,” said Eric Balaban, a staff attorney for the National Prison Project, to the ACLU. “Because society views prisoners as second-class citizens, their stories have largely gone unnoticed and therefore untold.”

Prisons are legally responsible for the welfare of prisoners and are required to uphold statutory and case laws that protect prisoners’ rights. During disasters, prisons need to take action to protect prisoners from preventable harm. However, a disturbing lack of preparedness has been noted across many facilities.

Research has shown that many facilities lacked emergency plans for responding to and recovering from disasters, and prison officials were often not properly trained to manage such incidents. This lack of preparedness is further highlighted in the recent AJPH report, which found that “there is currently no unified federal plan to provide oversight or relief to incarcerated people during climate disaster events.”

Storm surge and infrastructure concerns

The National Hurricane Center warns of a possible 8- to 12-foot storm surge in Tampa Bay, with up to 15 feet possible in some areas. This presents a particular danger to low-lying correctional facilities.

Previous disasters have exposed the vulnerabilities of prison infrastructure. In 2018, as Hurricane Florence hit South Carolina, inmates at MacDougall Correctional Institution were not evacuated. They reported flooding in their cells, lack of drinking water, and overflowing toilets.

The decision not to evacuate can have severe consequences. During Hurricane Harvey in 2017, one inmate described the deteriorating conditions to Mother Jones: “The water at the prison was shut off without notice, and the ceilings in our cells started leaking, causing dirty water to pool up on our floors… They left us locked in an 8 by 12 foot cell for several days with feces and urine piling up in our toilets.”

The 2022 AJPH report reveals alarming gaps in state-level planning for inmates during disasters. Out of 40 states with publicly shared emergency management plans, only 6 states (15%) included protocols around Department of Corrections (DOC) resident safety and evacuation. Even more concerning, 33 DOCs (66%) did not have emergency management plans published on their website at the time of the analysis.

Correctional facilities have encountered numerous challenges when responding to disasters. These include housing and feeding prisoners, transportation and relocation of prisoners to other facilities, staffing shortages, security issues, and providing medical needs for prisoners.

The AJPH report also noted another disturbing trend: many state plans mention incarcerated individuals primarily in the context of labor for disaster mitigation, rather than their safety and protection.

Long-term impacts and calls for change

The effects of hurricanes on prisons can linger long after the storm passes. Power outages, water shortages, and damaged infrastructure can create inhumane conditions for inmates.

Advocacy groups argue that more comprehensive emergency plans are needed to protect inmates during natural disasters. The ACLU and other organizations have called for mandatory evacuation policies for at-risk facilities, better communication with inmates’ families during emergencies, and infrastructure improvements to make prisons more resilient to extreme weather.

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The AJPH report offers several recommendations, including making federal funding contingent on creating essential features of operation for disaster response, and developing emergency management plans that include evacuation policies and plans to provide food, water, clothing, and shelter. The report also suggests longer-term solutions such as creating policies that explicitly require the protection and well-being of prison residents, and even reducing carceral populations to minimize the number of individuals affected by climate disasters.

As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of hurricanes – with Milton being the latest example of rapid intensification – the challenges facing incarcerated populations during these events are likely to grow. Balancing security concerns with the basic human rights and safety of inmates remains a complex and urgent issue for correctional systems in hurricane-prone regions.

Research suggests that without some form of federal oversight or guidance, correctional facilities across the country will remain unprepared to respond to and recover from disasters, potentially failing at their duty to protect prisoners and the public.

As Hurricane Milton hits, advocates argue that the urgent need for comprehensive disaster preparedness in America’s prisons has never been clearer.

Balaban emphasized the importance of learning from these experiences in 2006 to the ACLU: “These are the untold horrors of Hurricane Katrina. We must preserve these stories to create a record of the tragedy and to ensure that the mistakes detailed in this report are never repeated.”

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