Rikers Island spiraled into chaos after last week’s storm hit, with as few as three people running its Emergency Operations Center, correction officers forced to work triple shifts and roads so blanketed with snow that an ambulance was delayed in transporting a prisoner who later died, sources revealed.
Only three people — an officer, a captain and a civilian employee — were helming the island’s emergency operations headquarters last Friday, the sources said. As the storm intensified, staffing levels climbed to five — much lower than the dozens who reported during Hurricane Sandy.
“There were probably five people total in the operations center when there should have been 50,” a Department of Correction source told The Post.
One inmate, Angel Perez-Rios, hanged himself during the chaos and later died, according to a source. The ambulance took longer than it normally would have to reach him, reducing his chances of survival, the source added.
“EMS and DOC staff followed standard protocol in working to revive the inmate before transporting him to the ambulance,” insisted Department of Correction spokesman Peter Thorne, who added that the EOC was “appropriately staffed.”
DOC sources said there were four people manning EOC at start of the storm.