The Chesapeake Sheriff’s Office is hard at work, helping residents who are still feeling the effects of Hurricane Matthew. Over the past three days, the CSO’s Inmate Work crews have responded to 26 work orders (clearing blocked roads, cutting down trees, etc.) and filled 10,000 sandbags to help control the runoff from our flooded waterways.
Today, Chesapeake Sheriff Jim O’Sullivan visited crews as they placed 300 sandbags at Deep Creek United Methodist Church and along Hinton Avenue in the Deep Creek area. While most of the floodwaters have receded, water from the Great Dismal Swamp Canal is still flooding nearby roads and parking lots. The Sheriff’s Office, the Public Works Department and the Emergency Management Operations Center are working together to stop the water as it inches closer to nearby homes.
The Workforce program allows inmates to work off their sentence, while giving back to their community. The Chesapeake Sheriff’s Office has 17 inmate work crews; each crew saves the city $175,000 a year.
“It’s just nice to see the individuals who are incarcerated in our facility coming out here and serving our community in a positive way,” said Sheriff O’Sullivan. “It’s a good day for Chesapeake. We’re rebuilding, getting things back in place.”