People In Texas Jails Are 'Freezing,' Without Hot Food Or Running Water

[tblue37]

People In Texas Jails Are ‘Freezing,’ Without Hot Food Or Running Water
The toilets in one Harris County jail were filled to the brim with feces and urine because the facility had no running water, according to people incarcerated there.

Snip

Prendergast said that after power went out at the jail around 2 a.m. on Monday, generators kicked in, but power was restored in a limited fashion: Only one of five rows of lights in the dorm lit up, and electrical outlets didn’t work. He said “cool air” has been blowing through the vents, and they weren’t given any dinner Monday night.

Nigel Patrick, a 37-year-old incarcerated in the same facility, confirmed Prendergast’s account that they hadn’t received dinner on Monday. He said that people had not received any extra blankets and were wrapped up “like a burrito” in the single thin blanket they already had.

On Tuesday night, corrections officers distributed 16-ounce water bottles, which people incarcerated at the facility now must use for drinking, brushing their teeth, and washing their hands. Meanwhile, the nine toilets in the facility — which are used by dozens of people — have been filled up to the brim with urine and feces.

“It’s unbearable,” Patrick said on the phone from the jail, speaking to HuffPost and Texas Jail Project advocates. “I’ve been holding my bowels, needing to defecate for two days.”

Snip

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-winter-storm-jails-prisons-power-outage_n_602db1dbc5b66da5db9ee685

[soothsayer]

1. Jeezus

[magicarpet]

2. Jesz,...Have any prisoners received the Covid vaccine yet.

It sounds like a incubator from Covid there.

[DBoon]

4. Covid? Hell we are looking at dysentery

or some other disease no longer seen in the "civilized" world

[tblue37]

5. Later in the article:

Due to widespread power outages, there was a risk that many vials of the COVID-19 vaccine — which must be kept in sub-zero freezers — would go bad, so Prendergast, Patrick and others in Harris County jails received the vaccine yesterday.

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

[mucifer]

6. FEMA needs to get there now.

[gratuitous]

7. State run facilities or for-profit?

Because we know Texas Republicans would rather a thousand inmates die than impose the heavy hand of regulation on the plucky entrepreneurs who are just trying to make a lot of money out of incarcerating people. If they have to provide the inmates with blankets and meals and water and heat, that'll cut into the profit margin!