DannyBoyinExile

Summer is officially here – but that’s not news to anyone in TDCJ. It has already reached 100° multiple times, and that’s just the outside temperature. Remember that everything here is made of concrete and steel – both of which happen to do an excellent job (terribly excellent, that is) of storing heat.
If it’s 100° outside (which it is, in fact, in lovely Huntsville, Texas) and the sun has been baking into the concrete all day, I can only imagine what the temps are in the cells. It’s not pleasant, but I may as well get used to it, because it isn’t likely to change. (Until around October, I mean!)
People die from the heat every year, and many more suffer from various heat-related illnesses – guards and inmates alike. But I can say that TDCJ does what it can to make it more tolerable… They pray that it gets cooler! (just kidding)
Several times a day, inmates go from wing to wing, handing out ice or ice water to whoever wants it. A shoutout to them, by the way, because by them doing a little extra sweating, they’re making it better for the rest of us!
Plus there are designated “respite areas” where an inmate can go and sit in an air-conditioned place when they complain about suffering from the heat. This is always available to us – and I’ve seen it look like a slumber party, with so many inmates going there to get out of the heat.
We are each allowed to have two fans, and the unit property officer will usually give a fan to any inmate who doesn’t have one.
In addition, they sell items such as “cool down” T-shirts and shorts that are much lighter (and cooler), and we can wear those at rec or in the dayroom instead of our regular clothes.
I’ve even seen the administration go so far as to feed us “cool” meals for dinner, such as ham or tuna salad, cold cuts, etc. – which makes some difference during the hottest part of the day.
Lastly, speaking of heat, some of my readers were raised on Celsius, others Fahrenheit. If you didn’t know, you can convert a temperature from Celsius to Fahrenheit by multiplying it by 1.8 then adding 32. If you can learn a lot from a dummy – maybe you can even learn something from an inmate… So says DannyBoy.