It could be up to a month before Escambia County Commissioners are given a full slate of options for how to replace the Central Booking and Detention Facility.

A natural gas explosion irreparably damaged Central Booking on April 30. The explosion, on the heels of historic rainfall that flooded the basement of the facility that housed some 607 people at the time, killed two inmates, paralyzed a corrections officer and injured 184 people.

Since then, the county has been housing female inmates in Santa Rosa and Okaloosa county jails. Male inmates are in either the main jail, the road prison in Cantonment or the work-release center on Fairfield Drive.

Before the explosion, the county’s corrections facilities had a capacity of 1,422 people, said Bill Pearson, county spokesman.

As of this week, the corrections department has 1,318 in facilities inside Escambia County, Pearson said.

“They are bursting at the seams,” Pearson said. “We all understand there is an issue and we need to have a jail.”

There is no official damage estimate yet for Central Booking. The insured value of the building is up to $45 million for the physical structure and up to $25 million in flood insurance coverage, Pearson said.

The county also is in midst of giving people $100 checks to cover the loss of their personal effects that were destroyed in the explosion, Pearson said.

Analyzing temporary housing options

The county has contracted with Carter Global Lee to do a cost-benefit analysis of temporary housing options.  That will include comparing the cost of keeping inmates in other counties (including transportation) vs. building a temporary facility in Escambia County.

The county issued a request for qualifications (RFQ) on May 23 for vendors with the qualifications to build a temporary structure that could house up to 650 minimum security inmates.

Those are due Friday, May 30 to the county’s purchasing office.

A request for proposal (RFP) can go out to interested parties some time between June 2-13. That RFP will include the cost per inmate and how long construction of the facility will take.

When it comes to a long-term solution, Pearson says no decision has been made.

Options could include rebuilding the jail on the same site, which has a history of flooding, or building elsewhere.

Central Booking’s soggy history

Repairs were ongoing to the facility from flooding in 2012 at the time of the explosion. At that point, the county had spent more than $5.6 million (some of that covered by insurance) to repair damage to the power, computer, phone, air conditioning and water systems at Central Booking from the 2012 rains.

Cost estimate at the time on moving that vital equipment and operations out of the basement were $9.5 million, Pearson said.

Moving that equipment was the recommendation of Escambia Sheriff David Morgan after the 2012 flood. He sent a letter to county staff and county commissioners urging them to elevate that equipment out of a basement that was susceptible to flooding.

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