Lightning causes jail emergency

Published 9:12 pm Monday, July 23, 2012

Monday, the Dallas County Commission announced an emergency situation at the Dallas County Jail at the commission meeting.

“We have got a dire emergency down at the jail,” Dallas County Probate Judge Kim Ballard said. “We think, and even hope that, lightning struck the control panel.”

Ballard said the jail is currently operating strictly on emergency lighting, there is no television service for the inmates and all security doors are being operated manually. This means doors that normally are controlled from a watch deck and opened electrically, have to be opened manually and causing extra work for the jail staff.

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“We have had the electrical engineers, the insurance adjusters and several others down there [Monday] and we will have an answer hopefully by [Tuesday],” Ballard said. “But it’s a good possibility that I’m going to come to you all and have to ask for some money.”

The potential request for funds is because there is a $25,000 deductable on the insurance policy, Ballard said, but it would take as much as $250,000 to totally replace the control panel if it cannot be fixed. That is a huge financial burden if the control panel is simply broken and no lightning was involved, due to insurance purposes.

He said even though the inmates are uncomfortable without television, the air conditioning is working properly. The assessment by both the insurance adjuster and the electrical engineers was expected to have been provided late Monday and the County Commission hopes to know the fate of the control panel sometime Tuesday.

“We want to make sure our bases are covered from a liability stand point because you never know when something will happen,” Ballard said. “We hope to have it back up and running as soon as possible.”