IN THE EARLY morning hours last Friday, Nick climbed out of his bunk at Mountain View Correctional Institution in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, and stepped into a pool of water.

As Hurricane Helene unleashed a torrential downpour over Western North Carolina, Nick, whose story was relayed by a relative and who requested to go by his first name for fear of retribution, realized his single-occupancy cell in the state prison had begun to flood. Then he realized that his toilet no longer flushed.

For the next five days, more than 550 men incarcerated at Mountain View suffered in cells without lights or running water, according to conversations with the family members of four men serving sentences at the facility, as well as one currently incarcerated man. Until they were transferred to different facilities, the prisoners lost all contact with the outside world.

As nearby residents sought refuge from the storm, the men were stuck in prison — by definition, without the freedom to leave — in close quarters with their own excrement for nearly a week from September 27 until October 2.