Inmates clear tornado damage to free Oklahoma family stuck for over a week

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — A work crew of incarcerated people cleared the way for a woman and her three children to finally leave their rural Oklahoma property more than a week after a tornado caused widespread damage, state officials said.

The crew was still at work Friday after clearing numerous downed trees on Tuesday to give the family a road out from their home in the community of Blanco, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections said. About a dozen tornadoes touched down in the state on May 19 as severe storms moved through.

J.B. Sharp, a Pittsburg County road foreman, said the crew was “a great help to us.”

Margaret Green, warden at the Mack Alford Correctional Center, said she put the crew together after seeing a post on social media saying the county workers needed help. Nearly a dozen incarcerated people who live in minimum-security conditions volunteered to join the cleanup, keeping at it for nearly a week so far. Such crews are supervised and only people who meet specific security and behavior standards can participate, the department said.

“I just feel like it was giving back to the community,” Green said. “The inmates felt the same way. It’s an army of orange.”