PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — Portsmouth fire crews are working to evacuate over 150 inmates from the city jail after a fire started in the basement.
Portsmouth Sheriff Michael Moore told 10 On Your Side’s Kiahnna Patterson deputies noticed smoke around 1:45 a.m. Sunday morning.
Moore says the inmates were initially moved to lower floors because the smoke from the fire went up an elevator shaft, which has access to each floor of the jail.
“The fire started in the basement in a tool room. The smoke quickly went up the elevator shaft and that was a concern because once they got into the elevator shaft, it had access to each floor, all eight floors. We started evacuating from the top down to the bottom. For security reasons, we are going to move the inmates. I just can’t talk about where that movement will be in the time frame that it would take place,” said Sheriff Moore.
Later in the morning, 10 On Your Side’s Nick Broadway spoke to an inmate’s mother. She told Broadway that her son was on the fourth floor of the building and had difficulty breathing due to smoke on the floor.
“At that time, he did not feel safe. He said that nobody had been up there at the time to check on them, to make sure that they were breathing okay. The smoke was starting to come in [the cells] and he felt like it was getting hot.”
Moore said inmates were checked out and reports “no [smoke] inhalation problems.” Adding, “We were fortunate, able to start out of our evacuation at the eighth floor working down, because that’s where most of the smoke was contained.”
Families on scene say they are not surprised citing ongoing issues with the air conditioning and heating system.
“It’s 50 plus years old. It’s been a great building structure wise, but we are at a point now where the internal workings are really starting to deteriorate pretty quickly,” explained Moore.
We are told that no was hurt among inmates of Sheriff’s Deputies. One firefighter was taken to the hospital for evaluation.
Deputy Chief Julian Williamson, with Portsmouth Fire Rescue said, “We did transport one firefighter over to be evaluated. No injuries, but just to be evaluated. With the magnitude of this incident and the coordination on the resources, I think it went very well considering the life safety that was involved and the type of structure that was involved dealing with a commercial high rise structure.”
Investigators are working to learn what caused the fire.