No Air Conditioning For Death Row Inmates At McAlester Prison

NewsOn6.com

MCALESTER, Oklahoma -- Problems with aging air conditioning units at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester have left several housing units, including death row without cool air.

Prison warden assistant Terry Crenshaw says there is limited air conditioning in H-Unit, A-Unit and a portion of C-Unit.

Crenshaw says there is limited airflow in each of the units and maintenance personnel have been working since the weekend to resolve the problem.

He says they've called in additional staff to maintain security, safety, medical and mental health of both the staff and inmates.

Crenshaw said the only problems due to the outage have been minor heat-related illnesses.

The staff are providing ice and granting additional showering for the inmate population affected.

Crenshaw says extra fans have been purchased and have been placed in each of the affected housing units to keep air flowing.

He says because of the age of some of the air conditioning units, it has been an ongoing struggle to keep them operating.

OSP maintenance crews along with outside contractors are currently working on the problem.

Crenshaw could not give a timetable on when they would have all the air conditioning back up and running.

According to the National Weather Service, the high temperature each day since June 1st in McAlester has been from 90 to 94 degrees.