Floods exposed weaknesses in California prisons’ emergency plans — but they still aren’t ready

FILE Growing Tulare Lake cuts off th Avenue south of Corcoran in Kings County Courtesy DWR In amid record-breaking rain and snow two prisons in the southern San Joaquin Valley faced a serious peril of flooding But neither prison California State Prison Corcoran or the Substance Abuse Cure Facility had a robust evacuation plan on hand and ready for the looming accident Instead the prisons developed a joint plan to transfer roughly incarcerated people to other state prisons within to days or longer Wheelchair-bound individuals the plan stated would take six days to evacuate And department buses intended to shuttle people to safety could take up to a day to arrive The floods that year ultimately did not reach the prisons but the threat they posed illustrated how California s -prisoner corrections system has failed to prepare for natural disasters That s according to a document issued this month by an independent agency that oversees the department s disciplinary process and internal investigations While California s prisons are vulnerable to wildfires floods and earthquakes we located they are not adequately prepared to respond to emergencies posed by natural disasters stated the description by the Office of Inspector General which reviewed urgency plans for state prisons after fielding concerns about the department s mishap response The document detailed deep fractures in the department s exigency preparedness including issues of transportation varied exposure assessment methodologies lacking mutual aid agreements timely evacuations and prison overcrowding As of December California s prison system was operating at roughly or people over its designed maximum according to the description Not only are particular prisons overcrowded but the department is unable to evacuate the incarcerated population and staff at the greater part prisons within the first critical hours of an crisis the statement noted Without the ability to expeditiously evacuate prisons it is likely that wildfires floods and earthquakes will aftermath in loss of life within the incarcerated population Notably the inspector general exposed that none of the prisons included a plan to evacuate incarcerated people outside their gates but rather focused on moving the incarcerated population to and from locations within the prison The assessment concluded with a list of recommendations including ones that would bring the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation into compliance with California regulations around crisis planning Carlee Purdum an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Houston who researches how disasters impact incarcerated people disclosed the review is a first step in identifying more tools to patronage prisons and corrections agencies as they plan and prepare I ve never seen anything like this before Purdum announced Prisons and corrections agencies are very marginalized and isolated in the crisis and tragedy planning space The considerable takeaway should be that we have not engaged in these kinds of discussions and put forth the kind of state level support and accountability into these institutions Advocates for years have been sounding the alarm over the approaches in which California prisons are ill-equipped to confront state hazards due to issues such as overcrowding and aging infrastructure A account by the UCLA Luskin School of Residents Affairs and the nonprofit organization Ella Baker Center for Human Rights chronicled those concerns and urged the state to implement safeguards People inside have a fear that the actual plan is to abandon them in the occurrence of an emergency It is deeply troubling disclosed James King director of programs for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights In these constituents robustness crises it s not just going to affect the people in the prisons either incarcerated there or working there It s going to impact the entire county the entire neighborhood Trucks driving through the flooded intersection on Highway near Corcoran on March The flood was caused by rising water levels on the Tule River after a series of storms Photo by Larry Valenzuela CalMatters CatchLight Local Those concerns were echoed by Dax Proctor statewide coordinator for Californians United for a Responsible Budget a statewide coalition of organizations that view circumstances hazards as a key reason to close prisons The number one remedy to address these issues at hand is to reduce the number of people locked up in California prisons as rapidly as achievable Proctor reported A good starting place would be those the greater part vulnerable to surroundings hazards Executives from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the California Governor s Office of Emergency Services answered questions about the record before lawmakers at a hearing Thursday They assured lawmakers that the department would not work alone in a large-scale urgency California has a vast amount of information and we would rely heavily on our federal state and local partners to assist us with the evacuation of an entire prison revealed Melissa Prill special agent-in-charge at the corrections department s Office of Correctional Safety But Sen Laura Richardson a Democrat from Inglewood announced that in an unpredictable situation those partners may be busy assisting other people To assume that these other agencies are going to be available to help you or to help us in a prison setting is not something going forward we have the freedom to assume Richardson disclosed I would give this office of inspector general s statement of your organization I would consider it an F frankly Sen Kelly Seyarto a Republican from Murrieta explained he wasn t extremely critically concerned I think we re getting a little overboard in terms of thinking that we are going to have to evacuate entire prisons Seyarto announced It s just not a practical thing to think that somehow the whole prison is going to catch on fire In a message to CalMatters department spokesperson Mary Xjimenez commented prisons take an all-hazards approach to emergency planning and that it coordinates its plans with the Governor s Office of Exigency Services The department follows the FEMA National Case Management System which is the national doctrine that provides all federal state and local response agencies with a consistent set of principles management structures and a systematic approach to emergency response King noted the department has a history of being unprepared for surroundings hazards and instead reacts to them once they inevitably occur These are exclusively facts King stated The department could accept these facts and do something about them or they could try to manage their response to the account Disappointedly it seems like they ve chosen the latter This is an opportunity to improve their response to see the gaps and to create plans that address the gaps Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow CalMatters is a citizens interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California s state Capitol works and why it matters