A break in water services at Mountain View Correctional Institution caused inmates some distress the weekend before Christmas.
Trinity Manor of Statesville said that she had spoken to an inmate at the prison who said the water was out and that prisoners had limited access to drinking water from the evening of Dec. 20 until the middle of the day on Dec. 22.
“They don’t have water; they won’t give them water bottles,” Manor said. “They’re (defecating) in bags and stuff — that’s disgusting.”
Manor indicated that only inmates who had money to buy from the institutional store had access to bottled water during the outage, however, a spokesman for the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction said that this was not true.
“Portable toilets and hand-washing stations have been in place since Saturday (Dec. 20) for all to use, and bottled water has been made available to everyone,” Communications Officer Brad Deen said.
At just before the end of business on Monday, Dec. 22, Deen said that normal operations had resumed.
“Mountain View Correctional Institution experienced a loss of water Saturday (Dec. 20) evening and night, due to an issue with an intake on the Town of Spruce Pine water system,” Deen said. “That intake problem was resolved just after midnight (early Sunday morning) and water was available again, but at reduced pressure. Water pressure had been increasing slowly, and it returned to normal today (Dec. 22).”
Spruce Pine Town Manager confirmed that there was a disruption in water service at Mountain View.
“There was a brief disruption but everyone has water,” Stines said the evening of Dec. 22.