As temperatures and heat indexes crept to record-breaking levels last week, the men and women inside of Alabama prisons sweltered.

"Being in here is like being in hell," said one prisoner, who spent part of the heat wave in a solitary confinement cell with little air flow. He slept on the floor, his mattress soaked with sweat, he said. Though prison officials say the cells are ventilated, the prisoner only felt a thin stream of air flow through the cell door's slot for food trays as heat indexes in Alabama hovered in the 110 to 115 degree range.

"It made it difficult to breathe."

The rare excessive heat warning for counties in central and south Alabama last week followed an already steaming-hot summer, which the inmate called the "worst it's ever been" for temperature conditions inside Alabama prison walls in his nearly 30 years in the system.

The majority of Alabama's prison facilities are not equipped with air-conditioning, though an Alabama Department of Corrections spokesperson last week said the state has a contract "in place" to install air conditioning in parts of Holman prison and other facilities. Air conditioning was recently installed in two dorms of the Julia Tutwiler Prison annex in Wetumpka.

ADOC officials said the safety of employees and inmates is "priority" during extreme weather conditions.

"The department is taking precautionary measures to ensure the facilities have proper ventilation by optimizing the facilities' industrial fans and ensuring inmates are hydrated with liquids by providing a surplus of water and ice," said Bob Horton, an ADOC spokesperson, last week. "During the heat wave, work details at the state prisons are also curtailed to protect inmates from heat related injuries."

Prisoners and advocates have reason to be concerned about the heat wave: Extreme temperatures inside of correctional facilities have led to serious injuries and deaths across the country. People with certain medical conditions or taking specific medications can deteriorate quickly under extreme temperatures.

Texas is currently embroiled in a 2014 class-action lawsuit filed after 23 prisoners died from heat stroke there since 1998. Ten people died in a single 2011 heat wave, according to the Texas Tribune. The state has spent millions in legal fees to fight the lawsuit. Death row prisoners in Louisiana have filed a similar suit, and a Vera Institute of Justice report released in May found that the number of self-harm attempts increased during months with heat indexes over 100 degrees. Scientists have also tied excessive heat to increases in aggression.

Horton on Wednesday said no heat-related illnesses or deaths in Alabama prisons have been reported in 2019.

Horton said a contract "should begin soon" to replace the current ventilation system inside the Holman Correctional Facility's restrictive housing, or segregation, unit. Prisoners say the heat, overwhelming anywhere else, is suffocating inside "lockup" as prisoners can't freely move to the bathroom or to a shower, and access to ice is often limited to meal times. In the dorms, multiple fans maintain some air flow, but vents in restrictive housing designed for ventilation, exhaust and heat don't always work, a prisoner told the Advertiser.

"There are industrial fans mounted inside the restrictive housing unit at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore," Horton said in response to questions about Holman's ventilation. "The fans are operational 24/7 for maintaining continuous air circulation and airflow through the unit’s ventilation system."

Prisoner advocates also raised concerns about water access last week inside of St. Clair Correctional Facility, with several prisoners reporting trickles of water inside the facility.

Horton said a waterline leak forced engineers to temporarily turn off the water on Thursday to address the issue, and St. Clair's water supply was "fully operational" by Thursday afternoon. St. Clair provided bottled water to inmates and staff in the interim.

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Melissa Brown at 334-240-0132 or mabrown@gannett.com.

Updated at 11:15 a.m. on Aug. 21 to reflect additional comment from Alabama prison officials regarding heat-related illnesses or deaths in 2019.