As millions of<\/u> people across Texas suffered from power and water outages during extreme cold from a winter storm this week, women at the federal prison in Fort Worth where National Security Agency whistleblower Reality Winner is imprisoned faced alarming conditions. The detained women were forced to literally take matters into their own hands \u2014 in a disgusting way.<\/p>\n
Winner told family and a friend that incarcerated women at her prison “took one for the team” and used their hands to scoop feces from overflowing toilets that hadn’t been flushed due to the prolonged water outage.<\/p>\n
\u201cReality told me that the toilets stopped working because there wasn’t any water and things got disgusting really fast.”<\/blockquote>\n\u201cReality told me that the toilets stopped working because there wasn’t any water and things got disgusting really fast,\u201d said Brittany Winner, who spoke with her sister Reality by video chat. \u201cSome inmates put on rubber gloves to scoop out the shit and throw it away to get rid of it because of the smell.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many of the women, like Winner, are at Federal Medical Center Carswell because they have chronic medical needs that the prison, a medical detention center, is tasked with treating. But the toilet incident was one of several unsanitary and unhealthy hardships that the women endured, according to advocates and a detailed press report, during a week of extreme weather that has left dozens dead nationwide. While the frigid prison was dealing with internal temperatures so cold that one incarcerated woman told<\/a> a local reporter that her hands were blue and shaking, it was also still contending with an ongoing Covid-19 outbreak that has already taken the lives of six women incarcerated there.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the Bureau of Prisons said interruptions to service were minor. “Similar to many of those in the surrounding community and across the state of Texas dealing with heat and water issues during the recent winter storm, the Federal Medical Center (FMC) Carswell\u00a0experienced minor power, heat, and hot water issues that affected the main supply channels,” Emery Nelson, a bureau public affairs official, said in an email. “However, back-up systems were in place and FMC Carswell maintained power, heat, and hot water until the main supply issues were resolved.”\u00a0Nelson also said incarcerated\u00a0people at Carswell “had access to potable water with no disruptions or shortages, to include hot water for showers, and the ability to flush toilets.”<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nA report<\/a> in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram this week said that the “medical portion of the prison” \u2014 the hospital facilities \u2014 appeared to maintain heat, but the newspaper also collected accounts from the housing units that matched those\u00a0given by Winner’s advocates: shortages of hot water, loss of heat, and issues with waste management.<\/p>\n
Suffering\u00a0was widespread across Texas, where local authorities have raised alarm<\/a> over people so desperate for warmth that they used cars and charcoal grills<\/a> to heat their homes and suffered carbon monoxide poisoning. To Winner’s advocates, the crisis inside the prison felt like the latest unjust blow for an incarcerated person who, like many across the United States’s sprawling prison system, could have been released to home confinement long ago when the government made a halfhearted effort to reduce the federal prison population in the early days of the pandemic. Prosecutors involved in Winner\u2019s case opposed the policy and successfully argued<\/a> to keep the whistleblower behind bars, where she eventually was infected<\/a> with\u00a0Covid-19.<\/p>\n
“These women \u2014 they’re trapped,” Reality\u2019s mother, Billie Winner-Davis, said of the sub-freezing temperatures in Fort Worth this week. “They can’t escape this. They can’t do something to better their situation at all.”<\/p>\n
No Water, No Heat<\/h3>\n
Winner’s family and friends first heard from the whistleblower about winter storm conditions in her prison on Monday, when she told them that water had been intermittently off since Saturday afternoon. This meant the women detained inside not only couldn’t flush toilets, but that they also couldn’t wash their hands or drink from water fountains, Winner told them.<\/p>\n
“She was so dehydrated and so thirsty,” Winner\u2019s friend and advocate Wendy Meer Collins said. Collins added that Winner was so desperate to shower that she had given herself what she called a “birdbath” using ice cubes from a machine.<\/p>\n
In addition to the water shortages, the furnace appeared to be off or insufficiently functioning for much of the week, even though the prison appeared to mostly maintain power, according to Winner\u2019s advocates and the report in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which said women put socks on their hands and guards wore winter coats and hats indoors to stay warm. The Bureau of Prisons said there was a \u201cmaintenance period\u201d in the prison and that internal temperatures were \u201cmonitored\u201d but did not specify what needed to be maintained nor when it was\u00a0fixed.<\/p>\n
\n\nAfter nearly six days of freezing inside FMC Carswell, 1,000 women at the federal medical prison finally had heat as of yesterday afternoon. Administration has not answered my emails asking why the heat was not working while the prison retained power.https:\/\/t.co\/eZMj4Zk8hy<\/a><\/p>\n
— Kaley Johnson?? (@KaleyAJohnson) February 19, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n