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Part of county's insurance claim on jail denied

April 27, 2015
/ Shannon Nickinson
/ government

The saga of replacing the Escambia County Central Booking and Detention facility just took another twist. Finding the money to pay the estimated $161 million tab to replace Central Booking — and the aging Escambia Jail — got a bit more complicated. The county’s insurance carrier will pay out the claim under the $25 million flood insurance policy — but will not pay out a claim under the $45 million all-perils policy. “They’re saying they are not going to pay, so we’re going to have to fight for it,” said County Administrator Jack Brown. “That’s very disappointing.” Brown says the insurance company’s rationale: “They’re saying it’s just a flood issue,” Brown says. “What we feel like is all-perils means all perils, so it’s going to be resolved by attorneys in the long run.” Central Booking was rocked by an explosion on April 30, caused by a natural gas leak that came on the heels of an historic rainfall that flooded the basement. Central booking housed some 607 people at the time. The explosion killed two inmates, paralyzed a corrections officer and injured 184 people. An Escambia County grand jury returned a no true bill on whether criminal charges were warranted in the incident. The grand jurors did recommend changes to avoid a similar incident, including returning the jail to the supervision of the sheriff, not rebuilding the damaged facility in the same location, and improved emergency reporting and response procedures. Brown says he spoke with Federal Emergency Management Agency and state of Florida officials last week by conference call to discuss the matter. “What I’ve told FEMA is, we cannot afford to wait for this battle. FEMA wants to know what you’re getting from flood insurance and until that part is resolved, they don’t want to move forward,” Brown said. Brown says that now that he has the denial of claim letter on the all-peril policy, he can argue that the county needs FEMA dollars to help fund the jail project. Central Booking as wella s the current jail, are in a “repetitive loss” area — which chronically floods not only in large events like last year’s April deluge, but in other, less significant rainfall events. FEMA has a funding stream to deal with repetitive loss issues. “They’re willing to work with us on it,” Brown said. “We think we made some headway.” [sidebar] Why Delano Project matters The Delano Street project is part of what county staff have called “the Iron Triangle.” It is one of the basins that contributes to the city’s stormwater issues in the Longhollow neighborhood, she says. There is more than one aspect to the effort. One piece would be to improve capacity at a county-owned pond on L Street. Improving that would decrease the volume of water that flows through Longhollow, County Engineer Joy Blackmon has said. The county wants to get some property near the animal shelter and Hermann Street where there is a pit owned by the Florida Department of Transportation “It stands in water constantly,” Blackmon says. “I don’t think it is something that’s ever functioned properly.” Delano is in the 3,115 acre Eastern sub-basin of the Pensacola Bay basin, an area that covers city and county jurisdictions and drains a wide swath of Pensacola from north of Fairfield Drive, through downtown Pensacola and Aragon to the bay. [/sidebar] Estimates to replace Central Booking and the current jail — a facility that would hold some 1,476 beds — are at $161 million not including site acquisition or out-of-county inmate housing. The timeline for completing such a project is three years, three months. Rebuilding Central Booking and the jail are a large piece of the stormwater management puzzle that both the city and county face in the wake of last spring’s flooding. The jail is in the Delano Project area, an area targeted by city and county officials alike as a key piece of keeping stormwater out of downtown Pensacola. But until county officials settle on whether the new jail would be rebuilt in roughly the same location as it stands now, the scope of stormwater improvements to that area is not clear. Brown and city officials stress they are collaborating on strategies that would aim to treat more stormwater where it falls — and further upstream. “This is one of the few basins where the city and the county intersect,” Brown says. “But the problem with the jail is one of the options we have to look at is do you rebuild it there. Is it rebuildable (there)? We’re still trying to get the structural engineers to say yes it’s rebuildable or no it’s not rebuildable. We’re still waiting on the report.”

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Part of county's insurance claim on jail denied

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