Reddit reviews No Ordinary Heroes: 8 Doctors, 30 Nurses, 7,000 Prisoners and a Category 5 Hurricane

I've lived through several evacuate or not situations in FL, and had the authority to make the call. It's not a great place to be in. So many things to take into consideration, the state of your infrastructure, the numbers to move and the transportation available to move them, where you move them to, moving staff and support with them, when to do it, how much is the cost (yes, you can get reimbursed by FEMA but it takes over a year in most cases), how and when to take them back, and on and on. Of course, how bad the storm is and whether or not you are in the direct path makes a difference too.

I would hope most correctional administrators have established MOU's or mutual aid agreements for emergency housing in such situations, but I know that's likely an optimistic view. And when the SHTF, sometimes all those agreements get blown away with the wind.

In all the cases I worked with, we stayed, but had extensive plans for contingencies, like loss of water and power, maintaining the ability to feed people and house our personnel and their families. You can't expect your staff to be there if you don't allow them to get their families evacuated or otherwise taken care of. Our personnel came in prepared for an extended stay.

We also released as many as we could with the blessing of the court well prior to the storm's arrival, and for the county sentenced we released, gave them a report-back date and time. We had almost 100% compliance for hundreds of inmates, and nobody died or was victimized during that time that we know of. I have to say almost because one dude did come back late and drunk, but that was the least of our worries.

If you want to read about what it can be like, read "No Ordinary Heroes" which describes in detail what happened in the New Orleans jail during and after Hurricane Katrina, and I've heard the stories of many others who lived through disasters in correctional facilities. We took in inmates from the BOP after Andrew and housed our counties juvenile detainees in some of the storms. The key is to plan like hell but be flexible enough to roll with the stuff that is going to happen that you didn't plan for.

Be safe if you gotta work through it, and don't be afraid to share any ideas you have with your management. They don't know it all and everyone has to be all in during times like this. If you get lucky and are off duty during the event, get back to help when you can, because they are going to need you for relief.

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