RAYMONDVILLE — After 10 years, the tent city’s coming down.
Management & Training Corp., or MTC, will remove the 10 Kevlar-covered domes damaged in an inmate uprising that led the Willacy County Correctional Center to close last year.
MTC, which has operated the Willacy County-owned prison since it opened in 2006, will remove the tent-like domes as it continues to search for a prison operator to house inmates in the facility, Issa Arnita, the company’s spokesman, said yesterday.
“The domes are being removed because we don’t believe customers would be interested in housing offenders in those structures,” Arnita said in a statement.
As many as 2,000 inmates caused damage that left the entire prison “uninhabitable,” officials said after the Feb. 20, 2015, uprising.
“The (domed) housing units sustained significant damage, primarily infrastructure, including water, sewer and electricity,” Arnita said.
He said the prison’s insurance will cover the cost of the domes’ removal.
The domes housed 2,000 of the minimum-security prison’s 3,000 beds.
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