{"id":226608,"date":"2022-08-15T14:38:51","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T19:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=226608"},"modified":"2022-08-15T17:23:26","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T22:23:26","slug":"these-las-vegas-residents-can-die-whenever-it-rains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/these-las-vegas-residents-can-die-whenever-it-rains\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Las Vegas Residents Die in Flood Channel Near Mandalay Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two individuals died in a flood channel near Mandalay Bay on Aug. 12. It is unknown whether they were residents of the interconnected network of channels stretching hundreds of miles across the Las Vegas Valley.<\/p>\n

\"flood
A series of interconnected tunnels ushers the Flamingo Wash flood channel underneath Caesars Palace and the I-15. Whenever heavy rain is forecast, anyone occupying these channels must speedily evacuate or risk drowning. (Image: thetravel.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When floods ravage Las Vegas, as they have for two of the past four weekends, the hope is that residents and tourists make it safely back to their homes or hotels. However, home is a flood channel for one unfortunate subset of residents. That means\u00a0flash floods prove exceptionally fatal to this population.<\/p>\n

\n

The flood channels have a population thought to swell to around 1,000. Hundreds of miles stretch across the Las Vegas Valley, eventually returning stormwater to Lake Mead. But the most populated section ushers Flamingo Wash beneath Caesars Palace and the I-15.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In 2016, three individuals died because of channel flooding. One of their bodies was found washed a mile downstream.<\/p>\n

Dark at the End of the Tunnel<\/b><\/h2>\n

Homeless people began moving into “the tunnels,” as they call them, as soon as they were completed in the ’80s. They provide daytime shelter from the unrelentingly hot sun and a nighttime break from the police officers who regularly usher along those trying to sleep on the Las Vegas Strip sidewalks above them.<\/p>\n

This is only a temporary situation for me,\u201d<\/strong> said a tunnel resident who provided a fake name, Chuck, as a condition of speaking to Casino.org.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The interview was conducted during a tour of the Flamingo Wash tunnels given 10 years ago by Matt O\u2019Brien, author of Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas.<\/em> This 2007 book tracked the lives of several tunnel residents over the years.<\/p>\n

\"homeless
An unidentified homeless man is one of as many of 1,000 who could populate the tunnels beneath Las Vegas at any given time. (Image: thetravel.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chuck seemed the most out of place of the four residents consenting to an interview that day. The middle-aged man wore a blue Hello Kitty T-shirt and a bright smile as he grilled a Nathan\u2019s hot dog over a small propane burner on a neatly made up mattress.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a disabled veteran,\u201d <\/strong>Chuck explained. \u201cBut I save up my Social Security checks. I don\u2019t gamble them away like a lot of people down here do. I had an apartment downtown that I\u2019m going to get back into.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chuck had a required tunnel accessory handy: a stolen shopping cart. That\u2019s because the tunnels are indeed only a temporary situation for every tunnel resident. When it rains as hard as it has this month, anything not removed from the tunnels in time gets washed away by millions of gallons of rushing swift water. The water line occasionally reaches the top of the tunnel\u2019s shafts.<\/p>\n

The county empowers a homeless outreach team to enter the tunnels and warn all residents whenever any rain is forecast. However, that team is not empowered to force people to leave the tunnels.<\/p>\n

Fates Unknown<\/b><\/h2>\n

One can only hope that Chuck made it back it out of the tunnels before the recent flash floods \u2014 maybe even back into that apartment he was saving for.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people you get to know in the tunnels, you just have no idea what becomes of them,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cSome are dead, some are in prison, some have moved to a different place in the drains. Some are on the streets. And then, hopefully, a few have fought their way out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

To give that last scenario a helping nudge, O\u2019Brien founded a 501(c)(3) non-profit called Shine a Light in 2009. Now a Freedom House Sober Living program, Shine a Light offers housing, drug counseling, job training, and medical attention to hundreds of tunnel residents. Its volunteers regularly traverse the tunnels to distribute food, water, clothing, batteries, and flashlights.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

O\u2019Brien can detail the fate of one former tunnel resident he met while researching his book. That\u2019s because Robert Banghart is now employed as Shine a Light\u2019s outreach director.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve healed from a lot of things I\u2019ve went through out there by going back and giving back,\u201d Banghart said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s also a very good reminder. Like where I could end up, where I have been. It keeps me very humble. It keeps me very grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two individuals died in a flood channel near Mandalay Bay on Aug. 12. It is unknown whether they were residents of the interconnected network of channels stretching hundreds of miles across the Las Vegas Valley. When floods ravage Las Vegas, as they have for two of the past four weekends, the hope is that residents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":226610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,81886],"tags":[23,24],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTwo Las Vegas Residents Die in Flood Channel Near Mandalay Bay - Casino.org<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Two individuals died in a flood channel near Mandalay Bay on Aug. 12. 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