No plans are made to cancel Sunday visiting hours but the Sheriff’s Department is increasing staff at the county’s jails and will be prepared to evacuate.
While the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s search and rescue teams get ready for the coming storm, officials overseeing the county’s seven jails are making contingency plans in anticipation of Hurricane Hilary’s potential impacts on the county lockups.
Though the jails have dealt with leaks and drips in the past, Assistant Sheriff Sergio Aloma said they don’t have a history of major storm-related flooding and there were no plans to cancel regularly scheduled weekend visitation because of the weather.
Still, jail staff are preparing to open a temporary Custody Emergency Operations Center on Sunday morning and move to 12-hour shifts to increase staffing levels during the emergency. If the jails lose power or water, the Facilities Services Bureau will be on call to respond — though Aloma said they already have a stock of drinking water. He said they’re also ready to evacuate if needed.
“We will follow normal protocols for evacuations if necessary, in coordination with our transportation partners,” he said, adding that the jails have not required large-scale evacuations in the past.
Some families and advocates for inmates were concerned.
“I’m in a constant state of worry,” said Darrell Munn, whose son has been in Twin Towers for six years. “The jails are old and dilapidated.”
People in jails and prisons are particularly vulnerable to the effects of extreme weather, including storms, wildfires and scorching heat — all threats that prisoners have little ability to avoid inside locked cells. When Hurricane Harvey walloped Texas in 2017, officials evacuated several prisons while others struggled with days-long water outages and reports of knee-high flooding in some cells.
