Word: yarding
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...plot was classic in its simplicity?and its initial success. It began while some 200 prisoners were idling away their recreation time after dinner in the yard of the Brushy Mountain state prison. The beige-painted stone fortress, 40 years old and showing its age, is half hidden in the rugged Cumberland Mountains, 40 miles north of Knoxville, Tenn. No one had ever escaped for long from Brushy Mountain, a "maximum-security" penitentiary filled with hard cases?convicted murderers and other violent criminals...
Then it began, but in a way that would not immediately arouse suspicion. Shouts erupted, bodies swirled together in the yard: two inmates were fighting. Instantly, the other convicts began to shove and jostle each other to get to the scene of the action. They seemed to be reacting simply like bored men who were eager to enjoy any diversion in their numbing routine. The guards moved quickly to break up the melee, forcing their way through the crowd to get to the fighters. As the guards gained control of the situation, one of the prisoners attracted further notice...
That was time enough. While the diversions went on, seven prisoners were making a dash for another section of the wall at the northern corner of the yard (see diagram). As usual during routine operations, the tower nearest to it was unmanned. The men erected a makeshift ladder crudely fashioned out of iron water pipes stolen from the prison's plumbing. Frantically, the men scrambled up the ladder and wiggled under the 2,300-volt electrified barbed wire that ran 18 in. above the top. At about that moment, all of the phones inexplicably went dead in the prison...
...Friday, he and the other inmates of Block A filed into the dining hall to have a fish supper. They were then returned to their cells for a regular head count. At 6 p.m., the operations officer of the penitentiary picked up his microphone and yelled, "The yard!" The cell doors opened, and the prisoners moved out into the enclosed yard?about the size of two football fields. The men looked like sailors: they were wearing dark blue denim dungarees and light blue denim shirts...
...ladder had already been concealed on the western side of the yard. When the diversions began, Ray and the six others started moving toward the wall, and it was all over about as quickly as it began. At week's end prison officials were still not sure what had caused the phones to go dead at the critical moment...