James Guevara has ridden out three hurricanes sheltered in-place in Texas prisons. Hurricane Beryl, which blew into Texas on July 8, knocked out power at the prison where he lives, among several other Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) facilities. The lights went off at Ramsey, a 116-year-old prison in Brazoria County where Guevara lives, around 3 a.m., about an hour before the storm hit in earnest.
The outer windows in his cell were no match for the heavy rains, Guevara said. “When the winds began to blow, water began pouring in,” he wrote in a message to the Texas Observer shortly after the storm. Men in his housing area used rags, mops, and other cloths to sop up the rainwater, wringing them out over mop buckets or toilets. Without power, they couldn’t use the fans, and the heat in the un-airconditioned unit kept building. “It was a long and exhausting night,” he wrote.
Two days later, portable generators had been brought in and industrial-sized fans provided some relief from the heat and dried the remaining dampness. Guevara was grateful for the fans, as “No one [had] slept very well the last few nights because of the heat. I can see it wearing everyone down. Tonight should be easier.”
