An 8.8 earthquake in Kamchatka, Russia, put Pelican Bay State Prison’s region on the map marked in red for a tsunami warning on the FOX Weather channel in the late evening of July 29. NPR said, “Certain coastal areas … face a higher tsunami risk because their shallower waters amplify wave height. One of those areas is Crescent City, Calif.,” Pelican Bay’s location. What would happen if a severe natural disaster affected a California prison?

The Office of the Inspector General had already looked into the matter and published a highly critical report about its findings. The May 2025 publication with the wordy title “Audit of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Natural Disaster Emergency Preparedness and Mitigation Efforts” said that the CDCR “does not have specific plans to externally evacuate prisons in response to natural disasters.”

“All disasters have similar beginnings, and in the worst case, require evacuation,” said Chance Andes, the warden of San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. “We always have an emergency operations plan in place.”

The OIG report focused on four major issues: First, the CDCR’s ability to evacuate residents within 72 hours of an emergency; second, the CDCR’s consistency in risk assessments; third, the state’s review of proper planning for emergencies; and finally, mutual aid agreements.

“While California’s prisons are vulnerable to wildfires, floods, and earthquakes, we found they are not adequately prepared to respond to emergencies posed by natural disasters,” the OIG wrote in a letter to CDCR Secretary Jeffrey Macomber.

In an interview with the San Quentin News, Warden Andes went into various technical explanations and definitions about disaster preparedness and he outlined details about possible scenarios. He said he had access to professionals for appropriate responses and mentioned his satisfaction with San Quentin’s mutual aid agreements.

Asked about the July 29 tsunami threat, Andes said, “When the earthquake happened in Russia, we were alerted immediately and we tracked the tsunami. I would really like to know what the population thought about all this and we should have a town hall about it. I am open to more conversation about it.”

Regulations, outlined in Title 15 as “3301. Emergency Operations Plan,” established a mandate for each prison to have a site-specific emergency plan, but “none included detailed plans to evacuate outside the prison gates,” said the OIG. “Prison evacuations … will likely take more than 72 hours,” blaming the location and high mileage of transportation buses and other fleet vehicles.

Warden Andes told San Quentin News, “We always know what facility has space and we always know about availability of our fleet. Our next training is about natural disasters.”

For the OIG, overcrowding presented a problem. The excessive population “not only complicates the department’s ability to manage emergencies, but also greatly exacerbates its inability to evacuate incarcerated populations,” stated the report, adding that as of December 31, 2024, “California prisons were operating at 122 percent above designed capacity,” housing an excess of 16,263 residents. The OIG stopped short of recommending a decrease in the population.

Further OIG recommendations included updating plans, designating relocation sites near each prison (including deactivated prisons), relocating transportation hubs or adding additional hubs, and staff training.

The OIG’s second conclusion discussed inconsistent risk evaluations. Kern Valley rated its flood risk as high while North Kern, 2.3 miles away, rated it as low. Corcoran rated its flood vulnerability low while the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility, about two miles away, rated it high.

The OIG said facilities did not use one tool for risk assessment but used four different tools, which might result in incompatible estimates. SQRC and five other facilities used the Emergency Planning Unit Hazard Vulnerability Assessment Tool while 19 other prisons used other systems. Five facilities offered no specifics. The OIG recommended to standardize risk assessments and that adjacent prisons should work together.

The CDCR also lacked in their review obligations, said the report. Within the CDCR’s Office of Correctional Safety, the Emergency Planning and Management Unit has oversight responsibility over emergency planning and must approve each facility’s site-specific emergency plan, said the report. The OIG found “the unit lacks formal guidelines or specific criteria to assess the content of the plans” and “does not ensure prisons submit site-specific supplements or review them.” The report also said the “unit’s approval process is flawed.”

The OIG speculated that prisons “may fail to update their supplements regularly, even after significant events such as wildfires or floods, lowering their preparedness for future emergencies.” The OIG found that two institutions, Corcoran and the SATF, “showed significant gaps in detail and were missing critical information” in their site-specific emergency plans. The report reached a similar conclusion about Pelican Bay’s plan, which “still lacks sufficient detail to effectively evacuate staff and the incarcerated population.”

The OIG further found the CDCR deficient on mutual aid agreements — written or verbal agreements among public agencies, community organizations, and private businesses committing to assist one another during emergencies.

The OIG said at least two facilities have not entered into MAAs, and not all site-specific emergency plans include key details of MAAs. Some facilities reported vague plans and one facility said it entered into MAAs “with local hospitals and a medical doctor, but did not identify specifically which local hospitals, or which medical doctor,” the report said.

The OIG suggested formalizing all MAAs with clearly defined terms, and standardizing the documentation and review process. The report also suggested attaching MAA details in site-specific emergency plans.

About the OIG report as a whole, Warden Andes said, “Are we perfect? By no means, but we will address all issues.”

Californian neglect of natural disasters affecting prisons appeared common across the nation. An article in the October 2022 American Journal for Public Health said in a survey of 40 states with publicly disclosed emergency plans, only 30 mentioned incarcerated persons. Only six states included protocols around resident safety and evacuation.