HURRICANE Katrina Secret
In this article, Lillie Olson will be covering a little lesser-known story about a very well-known event in American history.
A secret Misfortune within HURRICANE Katrina
Written By Lillie Olson
One of the top American natural disasters that devastated our country is famously known as Hurricane Katrina. It struck the Southeastern coast in August of 2005. Britannica says it was the "costliest natural disaster," taking 1,800 lives during the storm and aftermath. Starting as a category one hurricane with 74-95 per mile wind speeds, it grew to a category four hurricane with winds exceeding 175 miles per hour. While the hurricane is known for its mass environmental destruction and detrimental aftermath for the people in affected areas, there are also lesser-known damages that occurred by this ocean storm.
New Orleans Parish Prison compound left 600 inmates trapped within its walls with no help. The inmates fended for themselves and, in the worst cases, they were lost to the storm. However, with no worker reports, there are no solid facts to rely on regarding what happened in those days. Corinne Carey, a researcher from Human Rights Watch, says, "Of all the nightmares during Hurricane Katrina, this must be one of the worst." Staff had evacuated the building and left the criminals in their cells on Monday, Aug. 29. Rescuers did not come back for them until Friday, Sept. 2, meaning that prisoners were left locked in their cells for five days with no food or clean water. On Thursday, Sept. 1, surviving inmates report that the generators died partway through the day. This left them with no lights, no air circulation and no plumbing, which led to a strong stench covering the prison.
As water levels started to rise within the building from the hurricane, some inmates were able to force open their cell doors, but they were still trapped within the facility. Templeman III, the building most affected by the storm, was several stories tall. Inmates state that some of the lower levels of inmates could not get their doors open and started screaming and crying due to fear. Bodies started floating about the top of the water within the first few days. Human Rights Watch says that inmates broke windows in attempts to bring in fresh air, but the bars over them blocked any escapes. Instead, they lit blankets on fire and threw them out the windows in an attempt to signal to outsiders that there were still people alive within the walls. To this day, visitors can read messages scratched into the walls: "Help us."
Prisoner testimonies of events started coming through to the media a few days after their rescue. Some claim that deputies shot at the backs of inmates who tried to escape the rising waters before they left. Another says that before the staff left, they threatened the inmates back into their cells by shooting bean bags, along with tazing and macing them. According to one testimony, the deputies handcuffed the cell doors to the walls of the cells. That way, even if the locks were forced open, the prisoners would still be locked in the cell. After rescuers arrived and were evacuating the surviving inmates, women reported the officers made degrading and sexually offensive comments to them as K-9 dogs were used as threats to keep them in line.
News reports on the incident shortly following the situation denied any and all mistreatment and deaths caused by the officers' actions. One spokeswoman who worked for the sheriff's department stated, "nobody drowned, nobody was left behind." However, later, officials released two lists: one of all the inmates that had been previously held in the prison and one of the inmates who had been evacuated. 517 were not included in the list. Investigations revealed that most inmates were being held there on criminal accounts of trespassing, alcohol charges and disorderly conduct; many had not even been brought before a judge to be convicted but were still being held in the facility. Most of them had sentences that would end within a few weeks, but Governor Blanco suspended the due process for six months, leaving inmates to be locked up for over a year in some cases. The ACLU wrote letters to council members saying not to reopen the prison due to a lack of evacuation plans, medical personnel and materials, but they were all disregarded. The prison continues to have regulation concerns. Conditions that violated constitutional rights were found in 2009 by the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. It was found that prisoners were being abused and neglected medical help while living in inadequate and infested living conditions from a lack of sanitary precautions.
With the known death toll from Hurricane Katrina at 1,833, there is already a lot of tragedy surrounding the event-- yet there are situations like the one that happened in this prison that brings forth the idea that perhaps that number would be higher. Without any official reports, though, we cannot prove anything and any lives lost to the storm due to any other outstanding circumstances will not be represented. This article is in memory of the lives lost during the hurricane, reported or not, and all other lives lost in other disasters that get quietly swept under the rug.
