I was talking to a colleague who heard a former warden of Angola State Pen (max security prison in Louisiana. Has a fence and outside of it, the second biggest swamp in North America and then the largest river in North America). The talk was on river mgmt and levee maintenance.

So there was this big flood and they asked how much time they would have if the levee was breached before the whole area was under water. Answer, about a half-day. They decided that they would have to leave the 200 lockdown and death row inmates in their cells if the flood happened and save the other 5,000 inmates by busing them to local and regional prisons. The 200 inmates in lockdown were too dangerous to risk moving them in the prison buses, the only lockable vehicles they have.

The warden said the decision came to this: He knew that the newspapers, governor, legislators, and people would hate him for leaving 200 men to drown. They would also hate him if those men escaped because there was no doubt in his mind that they would do whatever it took to get what they wanted wherever they went. That would take innocent lives. He decided he prefered to have the 200 inmate deaths on his conscience to the loss of a single innocent civilian's life.

It got me wondering whether this state (or any state, hint-hint) has a plan for evacuating their penetientiaries. I don't know, do you? Motel 6? Holiday Inn Express?