Last One Out, Flush the Toilet : Mira Loma Jail: The facility is closed and the inmates are gone. But a skeleton crew remains to guard against vandals and cracking pipes.

Deputy Les Carey has guarded drug addicts, prostitutes and wife-beaters, and his newest wards demand equal vigilance.

They’re the Mira Loma Jail’s 150 or so toilets, and each and every one of them has to be flushed at least once a week to prevent seals from hardening and pipes from cracking from neglect now that the jail is closed.

Carey is one of a skeleton crew that will remain behind to handle this and other tasks at the 40-year-old jail west of Lancaster, where the steel doors clanged shut for the last time Saturday, the result of budget cutbacks.

In addition to toilet-flushing, Carey will supervise four other deputies and two maintenance workers assigned to ward off vandals and to keep the medium-security jail in working order. “You don’t want to leave this place unattended or it will fall apart,” Carey said.

Closing the jail will save the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department $15 million a year. Sheriff Sherman Block announced the cost-cutting measure earlier this month in response to a $25.5-million cutback in the department’s annual budget ordered by the County Board of Supervisors.

But the sheriff did not have to release masses of inmates. Only about 160 women inmates were released early; most of Mira Loma’s 900 prisoners were accommodated at other county jails.

Late Saturday morning, the last 47 inmates boarded black-and-white buses for the 70-mile trip from Mira Loma to the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho jail in Castaic.

As the final busload pulled out, a pall seemed to settle over the 30-acre facility’s long, low beige buildings.

With all the books removed, the library’s brown, floor-to-ceiling shelves gaped. Half-completed chess sets and mugs in the ceramics workshop waited in vain to be glazed and painted.

The dog grooming center, where women inmates learned the trade, was deserted. The hair salon was still stocked with supplies and a strong chemical smell lingered.

In the barracks, four-inch-thick, tan vinyl mattresses lay folded near disassembled gray metal bunk beds.

A lone picture of swimsuit model Kathy Ireland remained taped next to one of the deserted bunks in the men’s ward.

“Morale sucks,” said Sgt. John Crabb, who has been in charge of operations at the jail for the past four years.

Mira Loma’s 170 employees have been bracing for the closure since May, when Block briefly closed the jail and released a few prisoners, only to have the Board of Supervisors quickly give him $4 million in emergency funds to keep the jail open.

This time, there was no reprieve.

“We keep telling ourselves it could have been worse--we could have lost our jobs,” said Capt. Steve Batchelor, commander of the jail.

All but a handful of nurses and other medical staff will be transferred to other jobs within the department, Batchelor said. Assignments will be made on the basis of seniority, he said.

Carey’s six-member crew will remain behind to inventory furniture and equipment, maintain plumbing and tend the grounds. The jail was also mothballed in 1979 for four years because of Proposition 13 cutbacks.

“If they decide to reopen this facility,” Carey said, “It’ll be all ready to go.”