Power Failure

I arrived at the prison today, and was informed there had been a power failure. This was not looking like just another day on the hill. And it was not. The power failure was most likely caused by the road construction that was going on nearby. I am not within the chain of command to whom the facts are provided. I reported to my office and was happy the air conditioning had been off for only a short period of time. I considered the variety of activities I could pursue this morning. There was no electricity, therefore no lights and no computers. It is hard to do much with no computers operating. We are all very dependent on computers to do our work. I reminisced about a few years ago when the electricity had been out. I’d done a major task that did not require a computer or lights that morning, only to learn I had neither for the afternoon! So, what to do? My clerk had not reported to work, which made sense as the prison was in the middle of an emergency count. Count is where you actually count inmates. One by one. Count each body. Count happens in prisons and hospitals. It is important in a prison to know that everyone is counted. In a hospital you need to know how many beds you may have available for additional patients. Either way, count needs to be correct. In prison, of course, if the count is not correct, you count again. That is the point. Fortunately, count was correct this morning with no electricity. The emergency generators were operating, this morning. I was able to clear and I entered the prison. I pass through a sally port to enter the prison every morning. A sally port is where you have a double door. Only one door is opened and you must pass through before the other is opened. Also fortunate, was that the electricity came on before too long, and the day got on its way before too much time had passed. HSED testing was scheduled today. There were 6 inmates scheduled to test. Each was excited to be testing. Most had studied and were well prepared. Hopefully, they all had a good night’s sleep and would do well on the test. As I said, today was not just another day on the hill.