Power outages can be a pretty big deal in this day and age. For most people the loss of power is mainly and inconvenience, and leads to a lack of lighting and disconnection from the internet. But for a prison, the loss of power can be a catastrophe. Last week, Southeast Texas experienced having rains and flooding, which led to massive power outages all across the region. At the Luther Unit prison in Novasota, the powerwent out at 10 am on Saturday, and led to massive brawling and riots.

Normally a secondary generator would have come on and saved the day, but the flooding damaged the generator. Most of the locks and other security measures in the prison are controlled electronically, and the power outage caused major problems within the prison until it could be restored. About 50 inmates of the 1,300 housed in the prison were involved in the brawl before power was restored and the peace was restored. The fighting caused by the power did not result in any major injuries, but 3 of the inmates were sent to a nearby hospital for stitches once order had been restored. Fortunately there were no escapes reported during the sudden power outage.