Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
Prisoners at several South Carolina detention facilities located in government-mandated evacuation zones would not be relocated ahead of Hurricane Florence’s landfall, authorities said Thursday. State authorities sternly warned coastal residents of the life-threatening danger they faced if they did not evacuate, but prison officials reportedly deemed several prisons to be safe enough to ride out the storm. More than 600 prisoners at the MacDougall Correctional Institution were set to remain in place, despite being in an area under an evacuation order issued by Gov. Henry McMaster. Inmates at the Berkeley County Detention Center and the Al Cannon Detention Center, which is in a flood zone in Charleston County, also were not going to be relocated, according to BuzzFeed News. The news came as floodwaters began to fill streets in parts of North and South Carolina late Thursday as Hurricane Florence approached. While Florence has now been downgraded to a Category 1 storm, forecasters said it would bring a “life-threatening” 10-foot storm surge when it makes landfall on Friday. As of late Thursday, tens of thousands were already without power in North Carolina and at least half a dozen tornadoes had been detected in the area, according to The Charlotte Observer.