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 hazard of flooding But neither prison California State Prison Corcoran or the Substance Abuse Remedy Facility had a robust evacuation plan on hand and ready for the looming calamity 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 account 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 determined 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 accident response The analysis detailed deep fractures in the department s exigency preparedness including issues of transportation varied jeopardy 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 quota according to the statement Not only are various prisons overcrowded but the department is unable to evacuate the incarcerated population and staff at the bulk prisons within the first critical hours of an crisis the description noted Without the ability to rapidly evacuate prisons it is likely that wildfires floods and earthquakes will end in loss of life within the incarcerated population Notably the inspector general detected 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 record concluded with a list of recommendations including ones that would bring the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation into compliance with California regulations around exigency planning Carlee Purdum an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Houston who researches how disasters impact incarcerated people announced the document is a first step in identifying more guidance to promotion prisons and corrections agencies as they plan and prepare I ve never seen anything like this before Purdum mentioned Prisons and corrections agencies are very marginalized and isolated in the crisis and catastrophe planning space The important takeaway should be that we have not engaged in these kinds of discussions and put forth the kind of state level materials and accountability into these institutions Advocates for years have been sounding the alarm over the avenues in which California prisons are ill-equipped to confront conditions hazards due to issues such as overcrowding and aging infrastructure A analysis by the UCLA Luskin School of Populace 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 episode of an urgency It is deeply troubling mentioned James King director of programs for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights In these society healthcare 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 locality 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 context hazards as a key reason to close prisons The number one response to address these issues at hand is to reduce the number of people locked up in California prisons as rapidly as practicable Proctor announced A good starting place would be those the bulk vulnerable to state hazards Executives from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the California Governor s Office of Crisis Services answered questions about the analysis 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 support and we would rely heavily on our federal state and local partners to assist us with the evacuation of an entire prison reported Melissa Prill special agent-in-charge at the corrections department s Office of Correctional Safety But Sen Laura Richardson a Democrat from Inglewood noted 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 habitat is not something going forward we have the freedom to assume Richardson declared I would give this office of inspector general s description of your organization I would consider it an F frankly Sen Kelly Seyarto a Republican from Murrieta announced 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 explained It s just not a practical thing to think that somehow the whole prison is going to catch on fire In a declaration to CalMatters department spokesperson Mary Xjimenez explained prisons take an all-hazards approach to urgency planning and that it coordinates its plans with the Governor s Office of Emergency 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 exigency response King mentioned the department has a history of being unprepared for surroundings hazards and instead reacts to them once they inevitably occur These are entirely facts King revealed The department could accept these facts and do something about them or they could try to manage their response to the statement 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 community interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California s state Capitol works and why it matters