By C1 Staff
MARTINSBURG, W. Va. — Inmates in the Potomac Highlands Regional Jail were evacuated Tuesday night after a malfunctioning valve in the heating system needed to be purged.
“Workers would have to purge the lines of liquid propane, and that presents safety concerns to staff and inmates,” said Lawrence Messina, of the W. Va. Dept. of Military Affairs and Public Safety, according to Your4State. “So the decision was made to temporarily relocate the inmate population of the jail elsewhere, so those repairs could be completed.
Over 200 inmates were moved from the Potomac Highlands facility to the Eastern Regional Jail in Martinsburg and to the Tygart Valley Regional Jail.
Inmates were moved as a precaution; the State Journal reports that the repair should take between two and three days to complete.
According to Messina, this is the first time since the regional jail system was built where a facility had to be cleared out by temporarily transferring the entire inmate population.