Post by Logan on Jun 7, 2016 13:22:00 GMT -6
RAWLINS – The group passed through barbed wire surrounding the Wyoming State Penitentiary. They entered the building, walked through a series of heavy steel doors and down a hallway, where they stopped and stared at a gaping crack in the cinder block wall, about 1.5 inches wide in some spaces.
“We’ll fill that in,” Wyoming Department of Corrections Director Bob Lampert said. “But you can see some of the separation.”
The prison was constructed with joints that allow the building to expand and contract with the heat and cold. But state construction officials never intended the walls to completely pull apart.
The fissure is one of dozens throughout the 15-year-old prison.
The State Penitentiary has huge structural problems, people on the three-hour tour learned. The soil is unstable. Floors and walls are buckling. Prison staff are sawing off the bottoms of doors as floors rise. They’re adding fireproof caulking to rooms with electrical equipment as walls crack. They’re laying rubber on floors where small faults are breaking tiles and looking to seal holes where inmates could hide or pass contraband. Flooding is a constant challenge, as the water table is just 20 feet below the ground.
Read more: www.wyomingnews.com/news/structural-problems-plague-wyoming-state-penitentiary/article_defe7c5e-2bb1-11e6-b600-073b6a570ce6.html
“We’ll fill that in,” Wyoming Department of Corrections Director Bob Lampert said. “But you can see some of the separation.”
The prison was constructed with joints that allow the building to expand and contract with the heat and cold. But state construction officials never intended the walls to completely pull apart.
The fissure is one of dozens throughout the 15-year-old prison.
The State Penitentiary has huge structural problems, people on the three-hour tour learned. The soil is unstable. Floors and walls are buckling. Prison staff are sawing off the bottoms of doors as floors rise. They’re adding fireproof caulking to rooms with electrical equipment as walls crack. They’re laying rubber on floors where small faults are breaking tiles and looking to seal holes where inmates could hide or pass contraband. Flooding is a constant challenge, as the water table is just 20 feet below the ground.
Read more: www.wyomingnews.com/news/structural-problems-plague-wyoming-state-penitentiary/article_defe7c5e-2bb1-11e6-b600-073b6a570ce6.html