Hurricane Dorian: Florida evacuates prison work release centers

With a Category 5 hurricane looming in the distance, its ultimate path still uncertain, the Florida Department of Corrections has closed a number of satellite facilities, such as work release centers and work camps.

The inmates are not being released. They are being sent to facilities “better equipped to withstand the impacts of the storm,” apparently meaning standard prisons.

Some of those Florida prisons didn’t fare well during last year’s Hurricane Michael, including Gulf Correctional Institution, which sustained major damage, requiring inmates to be relocated from there. Some had just recently been returned to Gulf.

Tomoka Correctional Institution, near Daytona Beach, is considered one of the more vulnerable compounds in the prison system if the state takes a direct hit from Hurricane Dorian, because of the facility’s proximity to the Atlantic Coast. The prison system boarded up some of Tomoka’s windows late in the week.

If it becomes necessary to evacuate any of the actual prisons, those evacuations will not be announced until after the inmates have all been removed. New locations for the relocated prisoners should be posted on the FDC website within roughly 24 hours.

These are the satellite facilities that have been evacuated:

Bradenton Bridge

Bridges of Cocoa

Bridges of Cocoa

Largo Road Prison

Orlando Community Release Center

Re-Entry Center of Ocala

The Transition House of Kissimmee

Atlantic Community Release Center

Loxahatchee Road Prison

West Palm Beach Community Release Center