Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast has a post that would be spectacular as a parody.  The only problem is that it’s not.   As we know today, Galveston survived the rampage of Hurricane Ike.  But we didn’t know that it would before hand.  Residents were ordered to evacuate, though many chose to remain.  The risk they took was of their own choosing.  Now, many of these residents await help in their flooded homes.

But there was a group of people who were given no option to stay or go. 

Galveston Island residents were told to flee Hurricane Ike or face “certain death,” but the Sheriff has inexplicably decided not to evacuate 1,000 prisoners from the county jail, even though serious flooding has already begun.

The Sheriff decided that the inmates stay.  From the Statesman story :

County officials earlier had ordered a mandatory evacuation for all residents. Sheriff’s officials insisted the prisoners and jailers were safe and sound, in a 2-year-old building designed to withstand hurricanes.

A sheriff’s office spokesman said the plan was for the prisoners and jailers to weather the storm in place — unless an evacuation took place later today. Sheriff’s office spokesman Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo told the Houston Chronicle that the reason for not evacuating the prisoners is a security issue and cannot be discussed,

Even so, he said, “the prisoners and their safety and well-being are paramount and it will be handled.”

While it always makes me feel confident when a public official announces his deep concern for the welfare of others, particularly those for whom government feels a deep concern like prisoners, I frequently find myself more convinced by acts than words.  That’s just the sort of person I am.

Rarely have I heard something so absurd.  Is this an incident of Texas stupidity?  Is this an example of disdain for criminals?  Is this the allocation of scare resources, better put to the benefit of the good citizens of Galveston than the bad? 

How dare this Sheriff put prisoners in his custody at risk.  How dare he decide that he’s willing to take a chance with their lives. 

Even if we assume the absolute best of the Sheriff, that he had such absolute faith in the jailhouse structure to survive the tidal surge, water, fire, wind, loss of electric and all other unknowns that can happen during a hurricane, the lives of these human beings, only prisoners for the moment, are not his to gamble away.

Grits has a number of updates to the original post, concluding with this:

As of this morning, Governor Perry’s spokespers said she “did not know about any Ike-related deaths and did not have any information about inmates at a jail on Galveston that was not evacuated.”

So no one dead as far as we know.   Woo hoo.  That changes everything.

Which leads us into this natural interlude:

Update:  Scott at Grits has posted from DailyKos :

IngeniousGirl who brings this report :

I just talked to Deputy at the jail – here is what I learned. … The Deputy would not give me her name, but she told me that the inmates are safe …

Plenty of heat, food, water, and the facility is 2 years old and is safe

She also said, the jail is not flooded.

Thankfully, everyone is safe.  But this is not an “all’s well that ends up well” situation.  The end doesn’t justify the means.  That’s like saying that drunk driving is fine, as long as you don’t crash head-on with a school bus.  Fortuitous consequences do not justify wrongful conduct.