Lee County Jail lies about 1500 feet from the water’s edge in Evacuation
Zone A
Nearly 500 Floridians are trapped in Milton’s path as it nears landfall tonight. Fort Myers’ Lee County Jail is 1500 feet from the tidal estuary of the Caloosahatchee River. The jail, a hulking, near windowless facility with 457 beds that serves as the main booking facility for the county, lies in Lee County’s Hurricane Evacuation Zone A. The county ordered all free people in Evacuation Zones A and B to flee by Tuesday evening, but Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno decided not to evacuate the 477 inmates in the overstuffed jail to safety.
The National Weather Service is warning that as Hurricane Milton makes landfall tonight, it will push the Gulf of Mexico waters past Cape Coral and into the Caloosahatchee, with tropical-storm-force winds bringing a storm surge of up to 6 feet of water into the estuary.
The Lee County Sheriff’s office confirmed to Hill Heat this morning that there are no plans to evacuate the facility.
“Inmates will be evacuated to top floors in case of flooding,” public information officer Julie Martin told Hill Heat, and the “kitchen is staffed and has two weeks of food for inmates and staff.”
There are contingency plans to evacuate the inmates to Lee County’s Core facility farther inland, Martin stated. The core facility currently has 1169 inmates and 47 spare beds.
Lee County Sheriff spokesman Nestor Montoya told the Fort Myers News-Press that all inmates are “safe”.
Lee County Jail is one of several carceral facilities in Florida not being evacuated from the fossil-fueled Milton.
Update October 10: The Lee County Sheriff’s Office reports that there is power and running water at the jail, with no flooding from Hurricane Milton.