Texas Prisoners Are Facing Horrid Conditions After Hurricane Harvey & Retaliation for Reporting Them | Democracy Now!

9.9.17

Texas Prisoners Are Facing Horrid Conditions After Hurricane Harvey & Retaliation for Reporting Them | Democracy Now!: As Florida braces for Hurricane Irma, we look at conditions in Texas prisons since Hurricane Harvey hit the Gulf Coast two weeks ago with a historic downpour that lasted several days and caused massive flooding. Prisoners were not evacuated from either the federal prison or three Texas prisons in the heavily flooded city of Beaumont, east of Houston, where high water was so destructive that it disabled the city’s water supply system. State prison officials say water did not flood prisons there. But a prisoner named named Clifton Cloer, who is housed on the first floor of the Stiles Unit in Beaumont, told his wife that he stood in water up to his kneecaps during the storm and later faced the stench of backed-up toilets. We speak to Rachel Villalobos, who has been in touch with her husband who is held at the Federal Correctional Complex in Beaumont; Lance Lowry, the president of AFSCME Local 3807 of the Texas Correctional Employees; and Democracy Now! correspondent Ren�e Feltz.