In 2023, amid record-breaking rain and snow, two prisons in the southern San Joaquin Valley faced a serious risk of flooding.
But neither prison, California State Prison, Corcoran or the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility, had a robust evacuation plan on hand and ready for the looming disaster.
Instead, the prisons developed a joint plan to transfer roughly 8,000 incarcerated people to other state prisons within 11 to 14 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…