Rat Invasion? Will Subway Rodents Move Into Flooded NYC Neighborhoods?

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With Sandy flooding the New York City subway system, a natural question to ask is “Where will the rats go?”  The New York City subway system is notorious for its growing rat population.  In fact, last year TWU Local 100 ran a YouTube video noting that for every rat subway riders saw, there were 8-10 more in hidden areas throughout the subway system.
Fast forward to Hurricane Sandy, the Wall Street Journal recently reported:

An MTA spokesman said late Monday night that water had reached into all five subway tubes that stretch under the East River between Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn and the Steinway tube between Midtown and Queens. It wasn’t yet clear how much water had entered the system.
The spokesman said floodwater had also been found in the underground tunnel that carries the no. 1 train to South Ferry at the tip of Manhattan, one of the low-lying stations about which officials had been most concerned because of the chance for flooding.
“There’s been an enormous surge that’s come up, some streets two and three feet under water,” MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota said in a telephone interview earlier Monday evening after a tour of Lower Manhattan. Water is “flowing at great speed” from the West Side Highway into the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, he said, but it’s too early to say how much had entered the subway system.

Subway Rats(Photo credit: rufusowliebat)

With that kind of flooding, where will the rats go?  The natural conclusion is they will head to the surface, out of the subways in search of dry land —or dry apartments.  And they are capable of doing so.  According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service:

• Rats can climb brick walls, trees, and telephone poles, and walk across telephone lines.
• Rats can fall from a height of 50 feet without getting hurt.
• Rats can jump three feet in the air from a flat surface and leap more than four feet horizontally.
• Some species of rats can swim over a mile in open water, and can tread water for up to three days.
• Some species of rats can travel through sewer pipes and dive through water plumbing traps.

With skills like those, it’s likely the flooding in the subways won’t kill the rats.  Rather, it will force them out of the subway system and into a neighborhood near you.