Fulton Jail Flood Releases 70K Gallons Of Water

ATLANTA, GA — About 70,000 gallons of water was released during a flood Saturday at the Fulton County Jail, authorities said.

The Fulton County Sheriff's Office said around 5 a.m., detention employees reported to jail maintenance a leaky toilet in a bathroom of the third-floor medical unit at the Rice Street facility.

When maintenance responded, authorities said they attempted to tighten a pipe coupling while addressing a small leak at the pipe fitting.

However, the coupling blew off, causing the flood, authorities said Sunday. The flood was not due to a burst pipe, weather or frozen pipes, they said.

Flooded water impacted the jail's front entrance and lobby, medical clinic, officer’s dining room, portions of the server room and courtrooms, authorities said.

Water was temporarily shut off to the facility during repairs and has since been restored, authorities said.

This is not the first flood at the county jail. Authorities said a pipe burst during an Oct. 11, 2025 planned repair and caused flooding.

Then, several servers were damaged, and authorities said they spent $1 million replacing them. During Saturday's flood, the new servers were damaged, authorities said.

Units housing inmates were not affected by the flooding, authorities said.

The jail's front lobby has been reopened after temporarily closing, authorities said.

Conditions at the jail have been deteriorating in recent years much to the frustration of the sheriff's office. In the past, Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat has criticized the Fulton County Board of Commission for choosing to renovate the jail rather than completely replacing it.

The Rice Street facility was initially designed to hold single bunks; however, prior to the jail opening in 1989, authorities said there was a shift to double bunking to "accommodate the growing inmate population."

In August 2025, authorities released the following statement, in part:

"The failing infrastructure is a long-standing problem attributed to the demand put on a system far beyond its designed capacity, from the critically failing pipes that continuously burst and leak, a foundation that consistently floods when it rains, locks that do not work properly, to an outdated HVAC system that span across three federal consent decrees."

Aside from the Rice Street jail, the Fulton County Sheriff's Office also operates the Marietta Annex in Atlanta, the North Annex in Alpharetta and the South Annex in Union City.

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