Global Disaster Watch
A Grisly Question: Did NYC’s Subway-Dwelling ‘Mole People’ Get Out Alive?
In 1993, Jennifer Toth horrified the world with her book The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City. The work detailed the lives of the homeless citizens who’d established communities in the subway and railroad tunnels beneath the streets of New York. Though criticism of the validity of some of Toth’s claims ran rampant following her book’s release, over the years various other sources have indeed found many people—one documentary estimated as many as 6,000—living illegally and dangerously in the subway tunnels.
New York City has been trying to get rid of the mole people for decades now, but video footage shot by documentarian Andrew Wonder in 2010 and released last year confirms that there are still homeless living in the city’s subway tunnels. Some of them have been down there for as long as 10 years. This in mind, it makes sense to ask two gruesome but necessary questions in the wake of Hurricane Sandy: Did all of the so-called mole people escape? And if not, how long will it take for MTA workers to find their bodies?
Owing to the fact that there were some recorded instances of homeless people refusing to take cover in the lead-up to this week’s storm, it’s likely the answer to the first question is: No, not all of the mole people did get out of the tunnels (might some of them not even have known a storm was coming?). As for the second question, seeing the MTA’s weak defenses against subway flooding, and all the damage that wrought, we have to assume that if anyone was down there and drowned, they won’t be discovered for weeks. Hurricane Sandy: The hell that keeps on giving.
—Cord
Related articles
- “The New York City subway system is 108 years old, but it has never faced a disaster as devastating as what we experienced last night,” Joseph Lhota, chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, said in a statement early Tuesday. (familysurvivalprotocol.com)
- BREAKING: NY MTA: All Seven Subway Tunnels Flooded (transportationnation.org)
- Pictures: Aftermath of Hurricane Sandy (fox4kc.com)
- New York Feels Hurricane Sandy Impact In Its Subways, Bridges, Tunnels (huffingtonpost.com)
- MTA: Salt Water In Subways Could Mean Long, Major Repairs (newyork.cbslocal.com)
- MTA chief: Sandy a ‘devastating’ disaster (newsday.com)
- Superstorm Sandy: New York subway system flooded in ‘worst ever disaster’ (telegraph.co.uk)
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this is a question that i have been asking all day. after seeing the flooded train stations on the news, one can only assume that the tunnels the homeless live in would have flooded as well. many of them likely either didn’t realize how bad the storm would be, or didn’t know, and did not escape. there is a concern here; IF there ARE bodies down there sitting in water and decaying, then you have an issue. how many people down there had communicable diseases? we also have rats and fleas and lice down there. these are all breeding grounds for the plague. you have enough bodies rotting down there, people who were sick, and those virus’ are being exposed to each other in the water, is there a chance of a super virus or plague forming? i am just a 29 yr old mom and chef, and i am thinking this, so surely someone else who has the influence to do something about it is as well? or not…..perhaps a new super bug would be welcomed. who knows these days.
Exactly, but having seen all that I have seen one would have to ask the question. Is that perhaps what some may be hoping? It is a horrible thought but the way things are going it is not exactly too way out there to consider.
Hopefully, nothing happens.However, I believe in hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. My thoughts and prayers are with you.
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