July 20, 2025

2. The Committee

Show Notes
Transcript

The Facility Optimization Committee forms to bring "systematic process improvement" to Alligator Alcatraz, led by efficiency expert Brad Thornton and his plan to drain the swamp through "Operation Dry Ground." While officials hold PowerPoint meetings about water management, their drainage project creates a moat around the administrative building, complete with resident alligators. Meanwhile, Tommy quietly builds his own committee—Luis the landscaper, Maria the organizer, and Old Pete the fisherman—who actually solve problems like mosquito infestations and food shortages. As Warden Fitzpatrick gets rowed to meetings across his new moat, Tommy's network proves that real leadership happens without committees, presentations, or official recognition.

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WEBVTT

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Calarugu shark media.

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Now, if you've been listening to these tales, you might

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be wondering what happened after Tommy fixed that first flood.

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Did the administration learn their lesson? Did they start consulting

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with folks who actually knew something about living in a swamp?

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Did they maybe take a step back and reconsider their

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approach to running a detention facility in the middle of

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the Everglades. Well, if you're wondering that, then you ain't

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never worked for the government. See, there's something about bureaucrats

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that's a lot like alligators. They got tiny brains and

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they don't learn from experience. The difference is alligators been

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prefer afecting their approach for about two hundred million years,

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so they got an excuse. Bureaucrats just got stubbornness and

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a powerful belief that if something don't work the first time,

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you just need to do it harder. And so when

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Warden Buckley Fitzpatrick got his next call from Washington asking

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how things were going at his innovative new facility, and

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he didn't mention the flooding, or the alligators, or the

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fact that his security system was being operated by raccoons. Instead,

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he talked about adaptive problem solving protocols and integrated crisis management,

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which is government speak for one of the prisoners fixed

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our plumbing. But Washington was impressed, so impressed, in fact,

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that they decided Alligator Alcatraz needed more structure, more oversight,

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more committees. And that's where our story really got. It's interesting.

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This is episode two the Committee. About two weeks after

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Tommy solved the Great Flood of July, a memo came

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down from the Warden's office announcing the formation of the

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Facility Optimization Committee. This committee was going to be responsible

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for maximizing operational efficiency through systematic process improvement and strategic

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resource allocation, which is a fifty dollars way of saying

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they were going to hold meetings about why nothing worked right.

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The committee was going to be chaired by Deputy Warden

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chet mackenzie, who was still riding high on his success

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with the adaptive intake protocols, which is what he was

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calling the day we all got processed in ankle deep

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water while an alligator watched. Also on the committee was

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Assistant Warden Delilah May Crenshaw, who'd arrived the week before

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with a briefcase full of improvement plans and a head

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full of business school theories. And the newest member was

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someone called an efficiency expert, a young man named Brad

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Thornton who driven down from Tallahassee with a laptop full

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of spreadsheets and a sincere belief that any problem could

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be solved with a right PowerPoint presentation. Now, Brad Thornton

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was what you might call a professional problem solver, which

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means he'd never actually solved any problems, but he had

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a degree that said he could. He was about twenty

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eight years old, wore suits that cost more than most

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folks make in a month, and had the kind of

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confidence that only comes from never being wrong about anything

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because you never actually done anything. He'd been hired by

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the state to optimize detention facility operations across US Florida,

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and Alligator Alcatraz was going to be his first success story.

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He was planning to write a paper about it, maybe

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get himself promoted to a bigger job in Atlanta or Washington.

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The problem was, Brad Thornton had never seen a swamp,

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never worked with his hands, and never met a practical

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problem that couldn't be solved with a flow chart and

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a mission statement. But he had enthusiasm. Lord, did he

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have enthusiasm. The first meeting of the Facility Optimization Committee

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was held in the conference room of the Administrative Building

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on a Tuesday morning that was already hot enough to

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fry eggs on the sidewalk if there had been a sidewalk,

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which there Wasn't I know about this meeting because Tommy

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was there, not as a member, you understand, but as

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what they called a resource consultant, which meant they wanted

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him to explain how he'd fix their drainage problem so

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they could put it in their report and take credit

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for it. Tommy didn't mind. He'd already figured out that

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these folks were going to do whatever they were going

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to do, regardless of what made sense, and his job

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was to work around them, not through them. So when

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they asked him to attend their committee meeting, he showed

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up in his cleanest work clothes and sat politely in

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the back while they conducted their strategic planning session. According

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to Tommy, and he told me all this later that evening,

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while we were sitting on the porch of our housing

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unit watching the Alligator's cruise by in the canal. The

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meeting started with Brad Thornton giving a presentation about systematic

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operational enhancement through integrated process management. For forty five minutes,

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this boy, with his fancy degree and his expensive suit

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explained to a room full of people how they were

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going to improve the facility by implementing best practices and

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standardized procedures and efficiency metrics. He had charts showing how

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detention centers were supposed to work, graphs proving that their

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current methods were suboptimal, and a detailed timeline for achieving

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peak operational effectiveness. It was real impressive, Tommy said, professional scientific,

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complete nonsense, but presented real well. The centerpiece of Brad's

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plan was something he called Operation dry Ground, a comprehensive

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drainage and land reclamation project that would transform the facility

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from a challenging aquatic environment into a properly terrestrial detention complex.

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What this meant in regular English was that they were

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going to drain the swamp. Now. When Brad Thornton announced

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his plan to drain the everglades around Alligator Alcatraz, the

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response in that conference room was everything you'd expect from

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folks who'd spent their careers in government work. Chet mackenzie

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immediately started talking about how this aligned with his strategic

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vision for adaptive facility management. Assistant Warden Crenshaw mentioned something

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about environmental optimization and sustainable detention practices, and Warden Fitzpatrick

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started calculating how good this was going to look in

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his next report to Washington. The only person in that

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room who understood what they were actually talking about was Tommy,

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and they weren't asking for his opinion. They were asking

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for his technical input on how to implement their brilliant plan.

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So when Brad turned to him and said, mister Esperanza,

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based on your experience with our drainage systems, what would

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you estimate as the timeline for achieving comprehensive water management

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in our operational area? Tommy just looked at him for

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a long moment. Then he said, real polite, how much

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of the swamp you planning to drain? Brad consulted his charts.

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Our preliminary assessment indicates that optimal functionality requires water table

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reduction across approximately two hundred acres of our immediate operational environment.

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Tommy nodded like that made perfect sense, and where you

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planning to put all that water well, said Brad, warming

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up to his subject. Our engineering consultants have identified several

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options for water displacement and redistribution that would maximize our

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land utilization efficiency, which was Brad's way of saying he

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had no idea where the water was going to go,

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but he was sure somebody could figure that out. Later,

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Tommy asked a few more questions, real technical ones about

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soil composition and water table levels and seasonal flooding patterns,

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and with each question, Brad's answers got longer and more

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complicated and less connected to anything that might actually work

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in the real world. Finally, Tommy said, well, that sounds

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real interesting. When y'all planning to start Phase one implementation

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begins Monday morning, Brad announced proudly, we've contracted with Superior

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Earth Moving Solutions to begin the initial excavation and water

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displacement procedures. Tommy just nodded, I'll make sure to watch

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for that, he said. Now, while the facility Optimization committee

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was busy planning to rearrange the Everglades, Tommy was conducting

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his own kind of committee meeting, except his committee met

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in places like the maintenance shed, the kitchen, and the

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little covered area behind housing Unit B where folks gathered

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to smoke cigarettes and complain about the heat. Tommy's committee

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didn't have a fancy name, or official authority or PowerPoint presentations.

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What it had was people who understood how the things

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actually worked and what needed to be done to keep

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everyone alive and reasonably comfortable in a place that had

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been designed by people who clearly never lived anywhere without

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central air conditioning. There was Luis Morales, who'd been a

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landscaper in Orlando and knew more about Florida collegy than

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all the environmental consultants in Tallahassee. Lewis could look at

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a piece of ground and tell you what would grow there,

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what would flood there, and what kind of critters would

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call it home. There was Maria Santos, who'd manage the

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kitchen at a restaurant in Miami that served three hundred

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people a day with equipment that was older than she was.

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Maria could organize anything food distribution, work schedules, supply logistics,

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and make it run smooth as a Swiss watch. There

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was old Pete Tran, who'd been a fisherman down in

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homestead until they changed the regulations and put him out

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of business. Pete knew water, how it moved, where it went,

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what lived in it. He could read the weather two

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days out just by watching how the birds behaved. And

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there were others, folks who'd been mechanics and cooks and

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construction workers, people who'd spent their lives making things work

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with whatever they had available. Not a college degree among them,

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but more practical wisdom than you'd find in a whole university.

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They didn't hold formal meetings. They just talked during work detail,

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during meals, during the long hot evenings when the air

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conditioning in the housing units struggled against the Florida humidity.

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They talked about what worked and what didn't, about problems

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they'd noticed and solutions they'd tried in other places, and slowly, quietly,

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without any official recognition or bureaucratic approval, they started making

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things better. Monday morning came around, and with it came

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Superior Earth Moving Solutions. Three men in a pickup truck

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with a small excavator that looked like it had seen

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better decades. The company was owned by Billy Coowalski, whose

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main qualification for this job was that he'd submitted the

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lowest bid and knew somebody who knew somebody in the

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state Procurement office. Billy had never worked in the Everglades before,

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but he figured dirt was dirt and water was water,

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and if the government wanted him to move some of

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each around, well that was their business. He set up

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his excavator near the administrative building and started digging what

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brad Thornton's engineering consultants had identified as Primary Drainage Channel Alpha,

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a ditch that was supposed to carry water away from

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the facility and into the existing canal system. What Billy

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didn't know, and what brad Thornton's engineering consultants hadn't bothered

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to find out, was that the existing canal system wasn't

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really a system at all. It was just a collection

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of drainage ditches that previous contractors had dug without much

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coordination or planning. Some of them led to the main

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waterway that connected to the Everglades, others led to low

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lying areas that filled up during the rainy season and

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turned into ponds, and a few just sort of ended.

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Billy started digging his channel bright and early Monday morning,

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and by lunchtime. He'd created a nice straight ditch about

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two hundred feet long and four feet deep, real professional

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looking work, the kind of thing that would look good

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in brad Thornton's progress photos. The problem became apparent Tuesday

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morning when Billy came back to continue his work and

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found that his nice straight ditch was now a nice

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straight creek running in the exact opposite direction from what

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he'd intended. Instead of draining water away from the facility,

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his channel was bringing water in, lots of water, and

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with the water came every that lived in the water, fish, turtles, snakes,

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and a couple of alligators who seemed real pleased to

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have a new highway leading directly to the heart of

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the detention center. Oohoo. Now, you might think that when

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brad Thornton saw his drainage channel running backwards and delivering

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wildlife directly to the administrative parking lot, he might have

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reconsidered his approach. May be consulted with some local experts,

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or asked someone who actually lived in the area how

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water moved through the everglades. But that ain't how efficiency

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experts work. When reality doesn't match their plans, they don't

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change the plans, they changed their interpretation of reality. Brad

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called an emergency meeting of the Facility Optimization Committee and

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announced that what they were seeing was actually phase two

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of the water management plan happening ahead of a schedule.

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The temporary flow reversal was creating enhanced aquatic access corridors

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that would ultimately optimize the natural drainage gradient, which was

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Brad's way of saying he had no idea what was happening,

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but he was going to act like he'd meant for

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it to happen. Chet mackenzie immediately started talking about how

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this demonstrated their adaptive engineering protocols and their ability to

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leverage dynamic environmental conditions. Assistant Warden Crenshaw mentioned something about

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nature based infrastructure solutions and sustainable detention facility design. Meanwhile,

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outside the conference room window, Billy Kowalski was trying to

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figure out how to get his excavator out of a

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sinkhole that had opened up when he tried to dig

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a second drainage channel, and in the new that was

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flowing through the middle of their facility. A family of

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otters had moved in and was having what appeared to

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be the time of their lives. But the real entertainment

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was watching the committee try to explain this to Warden Fitzpatrick,

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who was getting increasingly nervous about his next conference call

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with Washington. So you're telling me, the warden said, looking

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out at the expanding waterways that were turning his detention

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facility into something resembling a very disorganized venice. That this

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is all part of the plan. Absolutely, said Brad, with

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a kind of confidence that only comes from never having

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been held accountable for results. We're implementing an integrated aquatic

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management system that leverages natural hydrological processes to achieve optimal

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environmental balance. Fitzpatrick nodded like that made sense, because in

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his experience, when smart people used enough big words, they

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were probably right about something. While the Facility Optimization Committee

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was busy explaining how their plan was working perfectly, Tommy's

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unofficial committee was busy keeping the place from falling apart completely.

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See when you dig channels and ditches without understanding how

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water actually works, you don't just change where the water goes.

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You change everything. The soil composition, the bug population, the

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way the heat and humidity move around. You create new

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problems faster than you can solve the old ones. The

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first thing that happened was the mosquitos. Lord the mosquitoes.

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Turns out, when you create a bunch of new standing

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water in the middle of a swamp, you're basically setting

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up a breeding ground for every blood sucking insect in

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South Florida. Within three days, the mosquito population around Alligator

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Alcatraz had probably doubled. The guards started wearing long sleeves

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and pants, even in the ninety five degree heat. The

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administrative staff began conducting meetings indoors with the windows closed,

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and the prisoners who didn't have the option of staying

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inside started looking like they'd been in a fight with

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a swarm of tiny vampires. That's when Maria stepped in.

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See Maria had grown up in a little town outside Havana,

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where mosquitoes were a fact of life, and she knew

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things about dealing with them that didn't involve expensive chemical

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sprays or fancy electronic devices. She started gathering certain plants

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that grew wide around the facility, plants that Billy Kowalski's

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excavator hadn't managed to destroy yet, things like lemongrass and marigolds,

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and a few others that I can't pronounce, but that

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seemed to make the mosquitoes think twice about hanging around.

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Within a week, she had little bundles of these plants

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hanging around the housing units in the work areas, not

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enough to eliminate the mosquitoes completely, but enough to make

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life tolerable. And she did it so quietly that most

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of the guards figured it was just some kind of

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folk decoration. Meanwhile, Luis was dealing with a different problem.

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All that new water was changing the plant life around

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the facility. Some things were dying off, others were growing

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like crazy, and a few invasive species were moving in

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and taking over. The Landscaping around the administeron straitive building,

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which had never been much to look at, was starting

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to look like a scene from a jungle adventure movie.

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Louis started a quiet campaign of plant management, removing the

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stuff that was going to cause problems and encouraging the

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stuff that would actually help. He couldn't do much about

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the big picture. Billy Kowalski's earth moving project was still

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creating new wetlands every day, but he could keep the

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immediate area around the housing units from turning into an

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impenetrable thicket. And then there was the food situation. The

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new waterways that Brad Thornton's drainage project had created were

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playing havoc with the facility supply deliveries. The access road,

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which had never been much more than a dirt track

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through the swamp, was now partially underwater. During high time

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delivery trucks were getting stuck, supplies were getting wet, and

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the whole logistics system was falling apart. The official food service,

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still being provided by Patriot Nutrition Services, was having trouble

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getting their trucks through to deliver the expired MREs and

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processed food that passed for meals at Alligator Alcatraz. What

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did get through was often spoiled by the humidity or

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contaminated by swamp water. That's when Old Pete started what

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he called his supplemental nutrition program. See all those new

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waterways that were causing so many problems for the administration

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were actually creating opportunities for someone who knew how to fish.

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Pete had been studying the water since he arrived, watching

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what lived in it and how to catch it. And

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what he found was that the channels and ponds around

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the facility were full of perfectly good fish that nobody

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was bothering to catch. Pete started small, just a fishing

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line and some hooks that he'd improvised from materials around

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the maintenance shop. He'd fish during his free time, early

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in the morning or late in the evening, and whatever

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he caught would supplement the terrible official meals. But Pete

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was smart about it. He didn't try to replace the

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official food service or make a big show of what

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he was doing. He just quietly made sure that the

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folks in his housing unit had something decent to eat

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now and then, fresh fish cooked over a small camp

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stove that someone had liberated from a supply shipment. Word

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got around, as word does in a place where everyone

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knows everything about everyone else's business, and soon Pete had

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a small network of people helping him. Folks who knew

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about preparing fish, Others who could gather edible plants from

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the areas that Luis was managing, People who could organize

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cooking schedules and distribute food without attracting official attention. It

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wasn't much, but it was real food, prepared by people

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who cared whether it tasted good and whether anyone got

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sick from eating it, which was more than you could

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say for Patriot Nutrition Services. Meanwhile, the Facility Optimization Committee

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was holding its second official meeting to assess the progress

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of Operation Dry Ground. Brad Thornton had prepared another presentation,

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complete with new charts and updated time lines and revised

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definitions of success. According to Brad's latest analysis, the temporary

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aquatic expansion phase was preceding ahead of schedule and they

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were ready to move to Phase three, integrated water management implementation.

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What this meant in practical terms was that Billy coo

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Zwalski was going to dig more ditches. Billy, to his credit,

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was starting to have some doubts about this project. He'd

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been working in construction for twenty years and he'd never

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seen anything quite like what was happening at Alligator Alcatraz.

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Every time he dug a new channel, the water seemed

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to find a way to go somewhere he didn't expect.

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Every time he tried to redirect the flow, something unexpected happened.

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But Billy was getting paid by the hour, and the

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government had signed a contract for a specific amount of

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drainage work. If they wanted him to keep digging he'd

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keep digging. It wasn't his job to tell them their

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plan didn't make sense. So Phase three began with Billy

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excavating what Brad's engineers called Secondary Drainage Channel Beta, a

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larger ditch that was supposed to connect the existing channels

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and create a unified water menagement system. What it actually

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created was something that looked like a moat around the

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administrative building. Now, I don't know if you've ever seen

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a government facility surrounded by a moat full of alligators

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and water moccasins, but it's a site that tends to

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make people nervous, especially the people who have to work

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in that building every day. The guards started calling it

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Fitzpatrick's Castle, which the warden did not find amusing. The

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administrative staff began carrying umbrellas, not because of rain, but

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because of the birds that had discovered the new waterway

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and decided it was a perfect place to set up housekeeping.

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And the alligators, well, the alligators thought they'd died and

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gone to heaven. They had a nice, warm creek system,

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plenty of food and human entertainment available twenty four hours

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a day. Several of them took up permanent residence in them,

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including one particularly large individual that the prisoners had started

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calling the warden because he seemed to be running the

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place more effectively than the actual warden. But the real

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crisis came when Chet mackenzie tried to implement what he

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called enhanced perimeter security protocols, which was his way of

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trying to turn the water management disaster into a security feature.

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See Chet had been reading about medieval castle defense systems

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and he'd gotten the idea that having a mote around

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the facility was actually a good thing. It would make

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escape attempts more difficult, provide a natural barrier against outside threats,

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and demonstrate their innovative approach to detention facility design. He

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started talking about organic security infrastructure and nature based perimeter control.

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He had Billy kowalsks dig connecting channels between the various

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ponds and ditches, creating what he called a comprehensive aquatic

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defense network. What he actually created was a system that

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turned the entire facility into an island during high tide

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and a muddy mess during low tide. The access road

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was now under water half the time, Supply deliveries had

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become impossible, and the guards were having to use boats

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to get from the housing units to the administrative building,

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but Chet was proud of his innovation. He gave a

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presentation to the Facility Optimization Committee about how they'd leveraged

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environmental challenges to create enhanced security solutions. He talked about

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adaptive defense systems and integrated natural barriers. And then came

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the day when Warden Fitzpatrick tried to leave for a

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meeting in Tallahassee and discovered that his official vehicle was

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parked on what was now effectively an island, surrounded by

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water that was too deep to drive through and too

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shallow for the boats they'd been using to get around.

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That's when reality finally penetrated the committee's confidence in their

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comprehensive planning process. The Warden was standing on the steps

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of the administrative building, wearing his best suit and carrying

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his briefcase, looking out at the moat that surrounded his

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00:29:27.359 --> 00:29:33.079
parking lot, and in that moat, the warden, the alligator,

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00:29:33.440 --> 00:29:37.039
not the human, was floating with just his eyes and

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00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:41.680
nostrils above water, watching the proceedings with what looked suspiciously

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00:29:41.720 --> 00:29:48.400
like amusement. Mackenzie Fitzpatrick called out how exactly am I

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supposed to get to my car? Check consulted his clipboard, Sir,

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this is an excellent opportunity to test our aquatic mobility protocols.

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