Sherrard Williams, who is serving a life sentence for being party to a murder when he was fifteen, weathered the storm in a two-person cell in Connally Unit, a maximum-security prison in Kenedy, Texas. He is thirty-eight. His account has been edited and condensed.

During Hurricane Harvey, many Texas prisoners were locked in their cells with limited access to water and electricity. After officials decided not to evacuate a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas, hundreds of guards struggled to show up for work. Inmates said that they lost access to medication, and one prisoner told his wife that cells flooded up to calf-height. These reports came six weeks after a federal judge ordered the state to improve prison conditions during the intense summer heat, which has killed twenty-three inmates since 1998.

Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have prompted mass evacuations in Texas and Florida. But many Americans have been unable to flee, including huge numbers of prison inmates. The two states together are home to a quarter million incarcerated people. Texas has the largest prison population in the country, and Florida has the third-largest.

“It all began on Friday. You could hear the wind out there, powerful wind, and a lot of thunder. I guess the rain caused a lot of damage that affected the unit. They placed us in our cells on Friday evening because of security reasons. When the storm actually came through, we went through the experience of the power being shut off, to where everything was completely in disarray. No lights, no electricity. The generators couldn’t even function where I was at. After that, hours later, the water was cut off. I don’t know how, I don’t know why.

“When the water got cut off, you couldn’t use the restrooms in the cell. Now you gotta watch what you eat, you gotta watch what you drink. They came around with some water and brought us sack lunches—sandwiches, things like that. I couldn’t eat because it was going to make me use the restroom, and then the whole cell is gonna be messed up. Nibbled at a bit of this, a bit of that. You’re pretty much just trying to manage what you put inside your body. We were using jugs of water to pour into the toilet to help us flush it.

“They had problems with some of the locks. The doors, they’re controlled by a mechanism, so when the power went out, they couldn’t control them. They got a key—but if the key doesn’t work, or perhaps there’s something wrong with the locks, the inmate is trapped in there. They had to come down and basically break the door down.

“My cellmate, Joseph, just came over here from Travis County, because of that heat issue. He’s about to reënter back into society. He came from a state jail facility. Now you placed him on a maximum-security unit. It’s a lot of fear for those who have never been in this situation. You got the lights off, there’s no electricity, there’s no water. What’s next? Anxiety is setting in instantly. We pretty much coached each other through the whole thing. I’m more of a thinker. I kind of listen to what my mind is telling me. Reminding myself it’s gonna be all right.

“Monday they was able to get Porta Potties placed on the recreational yard. That really saved us. If you want to eat a little something, now you can eat.

“There was one correctional officer, a captain, that came in on Monday. She spoke for, like, thirty minutes to us. She explained everything that was going on. She said, ‘It’s nothing to do with race. There’s people going through a lot of things. There’s devastation. They need prayer. God is in here. Pray for them.’ That’s pretty much what the fellas needed to hear. I thought about the people that was going through this disaster, in the free world. I stayed in the cell and prayed.

“You find some type of solace, knowing what you can possibly control, and focussing on that. If something happens, if the storm comes through, I don’t think they gonna concentrate too much on you. They’re gonna worry about the officers first. In Beaumont, a federal prison, they didn’t evacuate the prisoners. I think that’s the most frightening thing. That could have been us.

“I prayed that the new prison administration was able to pull us up out of this relatively quick. The administration just came two or three days before the hurricane. They changed out the wardens, all at one time. It took at least a week to get everything back to its function. There is no good in this experience at all. But I believe that they was able to bring things back to normal swiftly. Under the last prison administration, it may have been worse.

“When the power was restored, I listened to the radio and read some newspapers. It’s a reality check for me, to make me want to get out and do the right thing. I don’t want to be locked up. I’d rather deal with real-world problems than deal with it in here. I’d rather look Harvey in the eye.”