Prisons in Hurricane Florence’s path will not be evacuated.

Storm of a lifetime” hurricane Florence is predicted to bring deadly disaster to large parts of the eastern US coast on Thursday.

But as millions are under order to flee, some are being told they have to stay put.

South Carolina officials have announced they would not remove inmates from at least two prisonsinside mandatory evacuation zones.

“In the past, it’s been safer to leave them there,” a spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Corrections said.

This is so sad. America needs to learn from what happened during Hurricane Katrina.

Almost 1,000 inmates were left to die in Orleans Parish Prison during hurricane Katrina,”

“The [prison officers] evacuated themselves and inmates spent five days in chest-high water, with no food or water.

“The generator had blown leaving them in pitch blackness – 517 were never found.”

Hurricane Katrina was the third deadliest tropical cyclone on record to make landfall in the US, causing more than 2,000 deaths and catastrophic flooding and wind damage.

New Orleans was particularly badly hit but prisoners locked in cells in the city’s jail were not moved to another facility. A third of the inmates had been awaiting trial – not convicted of any crime.

Power cuts and broken generators caused ventilation and lights to fail and electric cell doors to remain shut. One guard reported that officials had fled as the waters had risen.

Prisoners were abandoned in cells without food or water for days as [toxic] floodwaters rose towards the ceiling, according to reports by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch based on more than 1000 eyewitness accounts.

Orleans Parish Prison was eventually evacuated four days after the storm hit. Some inmates say they saw dead bodies and Human Rights Watch claimed that 517 prisoners had gone missing.