Cause of smoke in Hamilton County Jail still unknown; facility has struggled for years with lack of repairs

A day after smoke filled parts of the Hamilton County Jail, causing 150 inmates to be evacuated, officials still don’t know what caused it.

Sheriff’s officials declined an interview Wednesday until more is known about what triggered the incident but said inmates were “relocated temporarily within the facility” until the affected area – the sixth, fifth and part of the fourth floors – could be ventilated. One of the areas houses inmates who are charged with homicide.

As of Sept. 30, the 505-bed jail housed 532 inmates.

For years, public officials and the leadership of the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office have been working to solve a growing list of problems faced by the Walnut Street facility, including overcrowding, inadequate safety measures and daunting manpower requirements.

And for nearly as long, the jail has struggled with lack of proper air conditioning.

During a July tour of the jail, inmates and staff members alike voiced concerns over inadequate air conditioning units causing high indoor temperatures during summer months.

Certain floors and areas were significantly warmer than others, with one office being called the hottest area in the jail, and some inmates had taken their shirts off to cool off.

Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond has previously called the jail “[structurally] rotten to the core” and that it “cannot be rehabilitated.”

In 2017, a study confirmed the days of Chattanooga’s downtown jail are numbered due to repairs and additions becoming prohibitively expensive. The study outlined a long-term solution to those problems: expanding the Silverdale Detention Center and creating a combined jail facility that could eventually house most of Hamilton County’s inmates so the downtown jail can be closed.

Later that year, the Hamilton County Commission voted to transfer administrative control and oversight of Silverdale from the mayor’s office to the sheriff. County Mayor Jim Coppinger has said the move would allow Hammond to streamline and coordinate operations between the facilities.

The move marked the first step in phasing out the downtown jail.

Today, the plan is in the “engineering and contract process of Phase 1 with an anticipated ground breaking in Spring of 2020,” said sheriff’s office spokesman Matt Lea.

Silverdale is managed by private prison operator CoreCivic.

Over the summer, a report released by the Human Rights Defense Center and No Exceptions Prison Collective noted that CoreCivic’s state facilities had a homicide rate more than four times higher than public state facilities, despite the private company only operating four of the state’s 14 prisons.

The company called the report misleading.

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