How natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires impact incarcerated people

As Helene traveled northward, 2,000 incarcerated people were evacuated from prisons in North Carolina, but only after the storm damaged local water and power sources.

The United States has almost 2 million people behind bars in prisons, jails and detention centers—the largest such population in any country. Although incarcerated people are locked away from the outside world, they are even more vulnerable to the impacts of disasters, such as hurricanes and wildfires, than the rest of society.