As temperatures climbed to 94 and 96 degrees on Monday and Tuesday, two air-conditioning units broke down at Silverdale correctional facility, leaving some inmates – fewer than 40, officials say – without a way to beat the heat.
An electrical shortage caused a compressor on one AC unit to fail early Monday morning, said Jason Clark, superintendent of corrections. That failure shut down air conditioning to the Bravo 3 cell unit.
That cellblock can hold a maximum of 40 inmates and was not full during the outage, Clark said, although he wasn’t sure exactly how many people were being held inside.
The unit was out all day Monday and Tuesday and was fixed by Tuesday evening, Clark said.
During that time, jail officials opened the door between the Bravo 3 and Bravo 2 units, where the AC was still working, and used a fan to blow cooler air into Bravo 3, Clark said.
“It wasn’t inhumanely hot,” he said. “It’s something we keep a close eye on.”
A second unit malfunctioned in an Alpha cellblock, as well, but only one inmate was being housed in the affected area, Clark said. That cellblock is usually used for overflow or to isolate inmates for medical reasons, he said.
That unit had to be completely replaced and the new unit was up and running by Wednesday afternoon.
Silverdale spokeswoman Bianca Hudson confirmed that all the AC units at the jail were working by around 1 p.m. Wednesday.
Clark said inmates affected by the outage were given extra water and no inmates reported heat-related medical issues during the outage.
Mayor Jim Coppinger said he was aware of the problem and that officials took immediate action to rectify it.
Silverdale, operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, has the capacity to hold 1,062 inmates.
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