When Duane Waddy made a call from the Victoria County Jail in Texas on Thursday night, it had been three days since he had access to running water.
The bathrooms in his 24-person dormitory were rancid. The showers were being used as urinals. He said more than 11 hours have passed since he was last given a bottle of water.
“They give us a bottle a day and tell us to make it last,” Waddy, 35, told NBC News by phone.
The huge winter storm that hit the South this week left thousands of Texans without power and running water. Within the walls of several Texas prisons and jails, incarcerated people faced abominable conditions, according to interviews with inmates, family members and defenders.
Many facilities have gone through long periods without heating, leaving prisoners shaking in their cells. The lack of running water made the toilets overflow and people went for days without bathing. Supporters say unhygienic conditions, coupled with the threat of coronavirus, have fueled concerns about deadly outbreaks.
“We could have avoided this growing public health crisis by taking a smart approach to depopulating our prisons,” said Krish Gundu, executive director of the Texas Jail Project, an inmate advocacy group. “But we choose not to. Now we have to pay the price. “
The vast majority of people arrested in county prisons have been charged with crimes, but have not yet had a chance to go to trial or fight the charges.
The situation is particularly acute in the overcrowded Harris County Jail in Houston, the third largest in the country, where defenders say some prisoners have been forced to sleep on cold floors near clogged bathrooms.
In the weeks leading up to the storm, the sheriff himself warned of a possible health crisis, as the backlog of criminal cases due to Covid-19 led to an increasing prison population.
In a January 12 court case related to a federal lawsuit over Harris County’s money bail system, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez’s lawyers asked for help to alleviate overcrowding.
“The prison is exploding at the seams,” wrote his lawyers in the lawsuit. “Something must be done to reduce the population.”
Many of the prisoners, the lawyers added, “should be subject to release, but releases were slow to arrive, if at all.”
Alec Karakatsanis, executive director of Washington-based nonprofit Civil Rights Corps, said conditions now emphasize the risk of keeping so many people in prison during a pandemic.
“The lack of running water, heat and food – they all take on a totally different character in an overcrowded prison,” said Karakatsanis, whose group was among several to sue Harris County in 2016 for its cash bail system.
A federal judge ruled in 2019 that the county’s bail system was unconstitutional, paving the way for misdemeanors to be released from custody more quickly, regardless of their financial status.
But last March, while the coronavirus was spreading across the country, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed an executive order focused on municipal and municipal prisons that prevented the release of anyone accused or convicted of a violent crime that did not could pay bail in cash.
“We are concerned that if there is any other shock to the system, this disaster could turn into a catastrophe,” said Karakatsanis. “This is what we are seeing now.”
Jason Spencer, a spokesman for the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, said the prison had “brief periods without power and / or plumbing,” but temperatures never dropped below the state minimum of 65 degrees.
The facility was fully energized and had good water pressure on Friday afternoon, Spencer added, and there were enough beds for everyone.
Conditions have also been bleak in several state prisons, which house people who have been convicted of crimes.
The McConnell unit in Bee County was without water for several days and the power was turned on and off, according to relatives of people who live there.
Roxanna McGee said her husband, Sherrod McGee, 43, had little to protect himself from the freezing air in her cell until she called the facility earlier this week and they provided her with an extra jacket and blanket.
“He’s from Saint Louis. He knows what cold weather is like, ”said McGee. “When he calls me, I can hear in his voice that he’s cold.”
McGee said her husband told her that her meals consisted mainly of cold sandwiches, the bathrooms are overflowing and the inmates are not able to wash their hands or bathe.
“He’s saying it’s disgusting. It’s disgusting, ”said McGee. “What my husband is going through is inhumane.”
The Clemens Unit, in the municipality of Brazoria, has also been without heating and running water for several days, according to relatives of the inmates.
An inmate’s wife said she thinks her husband would be in a terrible situation if it weren’t for his hot pot. The woman, who identified herself only by first name, Nichole, for fear of retaliation against her husband, said he was heating the water he was rationing, pouring it into bottles and stuffing his socks at night to warm his body.
“It’s the only way for him to get some relief,” she said.
She said he told her that a fragile piece of cardboard was being used to block the drafts that entered her unit through a broken window.
“Animals at the zoo receive better treatment than those imprisoned in our prison system,” said Nichole.
Jeremy Desel, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said he is used to dealing with extreme climates, but this storm presented a unique challenge. “The difference here is the extent of the emergency across the state,” said Desel.
Approximately one-third of the state’s 102 prison units lost power earlier this week, Desel said, and the same amount suffered water disruptions. But drinking water was made available in all facilities, and those that lost energy had backup generators. Desel was unable to say how many institutions were left without heating.
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As of Friday morning, all facilities had their power restored and only a few were without running water, he said.
Conditions also affected prison officials.
Jeff Ormsby, executive director of the Texas prison officers union, said many police officers were forced to work 18 hours a day with minimal breaks.
“People suffer a double blow,” said Ormsby. “They are freezing at work – as are the inmates – and so they need to worry about their families at home.”
In Victoria County Jail, conditions have led incarcerated people like Waddy to fear a wider Covid-19 outbreak.
He said that prison guards come once a day with buckets of water to flush. But he hasn’t showered in days and prisoners don’t get cleaning products or hand sanitizers, Waddy said.
“The smell is horrible,” he said.
The Victoria County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
Waddy, who was arrested on drug charges, said he tested positive for Covid-19 in late January, but has largely recovered from his symptoms. He is now concerned about other people on the premises and is hopeful that running water will return soon.
On Thursday, prison officials told him they expected a return within 24 hours.
“I can hardly do anything about it,” said Waddy, “but stay strong and pray and hope it will be over soon.”