UPDATE, October 30, 12 noon: Solitary Watch has received the following statement via email from NYC DOC Deputy Commissioner Matthew Nerzig: “No power outages on Rikers last night. No significant flooding or disruption of our operations. The Commissioner [DOC Commissioner Dora Schriro] spent the night there.” Solitary Watch would also appreciate hearing from families whose loved […]
Two recent stories in the New York City media delve into the controversy surrounding the lack of an emergency evacuation plan for Rikers Island. Solitary Watch’s original story on this subject went viral in the days leading up to Hurricane Irene. In our follow-up we cited the response from the New York City Department of Corrections, […]
On Monday morning, after our story on Rikers Island and Hurricane Irene, highlighting the lack of any evacuation plan for New York City’s island jail, was widely circulated on websites, Facebook, and Twitter, we were contacted by Sharman Stein, Deputy Commissioner for Public Information at the New York City Department of Corrections. She wrote: “Every single one of the […]
“We are not evacuating Rikers Island,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a news conference this afternoon. Bloomberg annouced a host of extreme measures being taken by New York City in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Irene, including a shutdown of the public transit system and the unprecedented mandatory evacuation of some 250,000 people from low-lying areas. […]