This coverage is made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
In the first week after Hurricane Helene, a woman incarcerated at the Buncombe County Jail described a harrowing and desperate situation, according to her mother.
Her mother, who asked for anonymity for herself and her daughter out of fear of retaliation, relayed a written account of her daughters’ experience immediately after the hurricane.
“ [sic] At one point i remember wondering if i actually died during the hurricane and i was in hell because everything seemed so unreal,” she wrote. “Noone told us anything about a storm coming. Friday morning we were told we would be locked back because of a hurricane. Around 9 Am that friday we lost power & water. We did not leave our 8x10 cells for 72 hours after that. My cellmate hasd to poop friday night; by Sunday morning our toilet was overflowing and i woke up to my eyes burning from the fumes.”
Like much of the area, the jail has electricity, but no water. The woman described to her mother an unsanitary atmosphere of overflowing human waste in toilets and then, eventually, tied together in trash bags. She described officers withholding toilet trips to the portajohns and taunting her and other women in the jail.
“We would be threatened to be tazed, locked back & have the sparse porta o potty trips taken away if we asked questions,” she wrote.
In a county briefing on Oct. 1, Sheriff Quentin Miller, upon being asked about jail conditions, said, “I will simply tell you that all jail operations are normal for us.”
On Sunday, October 6, the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office reported that several individuals were being moved to another facility in order to ensure access to showers and toilets. However, water is still out. The office did not respond to BPR’s requests to disclose how many people were moved, where they were sent or how their families might know of the transfer.
In a press release on October 8, the sheriff’s department said the detention center is currently fully operational, housing 256 men and 24 women. “I have authorized the transfer of 141 detainees to other facilities in North Carolina to maintain our responsibility of providing a top level of care for our detainees,” the release said.
The Asheville Community Bail Fund supports people who are awaiting trial and do not have the funds to bail themselves out, which often results in weeks or months of time in jail without conviction of any crime. Its members have been in communication with incarcerated people. Fund volunteers said the current situation is not humane and are asking that all detainees be evacuated.
Another anonymous caller from the Buncombe County Jail told a fund volunteer on Friday that there has been no change of clothes in a week and a half, and with no timeline given to the city for restoration of water, that new people were being booked into the jail on outstanding warrants. At the time of the call, the caller was told "no running water, no court", inferring that it meant she would be locked up for longer than normal.
“A lot of times at a court date,” Alice, a volunteer with the Asheville Community Bail Fund, said, “somebody will have a bail reduction hearing, or the magistrate might decide to drop the charges, but because those court dates aren't happening, that means that people are just staying in the jail indefinitely until court resumes.”
At the time of the conversation, court hadn’t resumed yet. The Buncombe County court opened this morning, but local criminal defense attorneys have expressed concerns about the potential backlog due to the week-plus of missed court dates and hearings. Several other county courts in the region aren’t open yet.
There is an overall lack of dignity to the situation, Alice said, given that in a jail, there’s no escape from any unsanitary conditions.
Buncombe County Jail has been scrutinized for its practices in the past, at one time called the state’s deadliest jail, though no deaths through use of force or lack of care have occurred during Miller’s term.
However, the memory of that week still haunts at least one woman.
“Several of us are experiencing severe anxiety when it comes to using the bathroom. I have been having night terrors. I woke up twice last night sweating and crying. It felt like we were never getting out of there. I am terrified of reentering that facility. I dont think i will ever be the same after experiencing such horrors,” wrote the woman relaying information through her mother. She was relocated, but she and her mother dread the possibility that she could return to the Buncombe County jail.
