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Beneath the neon: Life underground in Vegas News Online's Cassie White
Top Stories
Updated October 01, 2009 16:29:00
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Beneath the jackpots and flashing lights of Las Vegas is a labyrinth of tunnels and storm water drains housing hundreds of the city's 15,000 homeless.
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In 2002, after reading about a murderer who hid from police in the series of tunnels, journalist Matthew O'Brien started venturing underground to see them for himself. "A guy named Timmy "TJ" Weber murdered his girlfriend and one of her sons and raped her young daughter. He was on the run and used one of these underground flood channels to elude the police," he said.
Weapons experts expected in Damascus as Syria backs Assad Shorten wants quotas to boost number of gay politicians Franklin to decide future within the week PHOTO: Up to 700 people often live underground at one time. EXTERNAL LINK: Photo gallery: Life underground in Vegas
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"There was a paragraph in the story that really MAP: United States captured my imagination and it made me wonder what Weber experienced down in these tunnels. So I decided to go down with another writer and we started exploring them together. "[We] were not expecting to find people living in these tunnels - these are flood channels, they can fill up really quickly with water when it's raining heavily. When we stumbled upon our first homeless camp down there we were shocked. "Some of the tunnels are small, maybe 4ft by 4ft, but there are also tunnels you can drive a truck through; they're big and dark." O'Brien, who has written a book about the tunnel dwellers, says up to 700 people often live underground at one time.
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"There's a lot of graffiti down there. Some is just gang graffiti and scrawls, but also some really beautiful mural art and poetry," he told ABC News Online. "Then you have hundreds of people who live in these tunnels throughout the valley and they have camps, which range from a cardboard mat on the floor to a king size bed with a frame and a headboard. "In a wet tunnel late at night I came across this guy whose whole camp was elevated above the run-off. He had used wiring to tie his bed into the tunnel wall, and all of his clothes and shoes were elevated. "Steve and Catherine are a couple that live just west of the strip underneath it. They're an interesting couple who are engaged, very smart, articulate people who have a very elaborate set-up down there - they've got a queen size bed that's elevated on crates, so the floodwater goes underneath it. "I also met a mum who was visiting her son Tyrone in the tunnels. She lived in a different city but she'd come to Vegas to see him and knew that he lived in a tunnel. "She brought plastic bags and boots and other things that he'd need to live in the tunnels, so that was an interesting perspective to get." Violence, flooding He says violence between the homeless, coupled with the threat of flooding, make the tunnels a dangerous place to venture. "It can be extremely dangerous down there. With the flood waters that can come down, there have been
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