But it definitely seemed to be getting worse," Lappin said. Jessica Lappin, the councilwoman who proposed the emergency extermination program for flood-damaged neighborhoods, said she was skeptical when she first started hearing stories about rat infestations since the storm but has come to believe the problem is real. "To a rat, it wouldn't look the same, it wouldn't smell the same," he said. They can move distances," he said, citing radio telemetry studies showing that rats can move several miles if displaced by environmental conditions.Īlso, because rats live in a world of smell, their former homes might have been rendered unfamiliar by a flood, he said, even if the buildings, parks or tunnels they had been living in suffered little permanent damage. But he said he couldn't rule out the possibility that displaced rats had moved into new territory. Retired pest control expert Dale Kaukeinen, who spent 30 years in the extermination business, said his first instinct was that Sandy probably decimated the rodent population in some neighborhoods. Hard scientific data, though, is still largely lacking, and there is plenty of room for debate. "Hurricane Sandy is not going to affect these critters." "I have seen them dive over 70 feet, swim 500 yards, give me the finger and head for the hills," he said. He noted, as did other experts, that Norwegian rats, the species found in New York, are known for being especially strong swimmers.
"I think this whole idea that there has been some kind of major relocation of rats is just good news media fodder." "What happened to the rats? Nothing! We're finding rats right where we've always found them," he said. The idea of a mass rat migration drew ridicule from Richard Reynolds, who leads a group of dog owners who conduct urban rat hunts. He also said that when water was pumped out of flooded tunnels and stations, there weren't large numbers of rat carcasses left behind. "We noticed no unusual rat activity or rodent activity in the wake of the storm," agency spokesman Charles Seaton said. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city's subway system, the nation's largest, also dismissed tales of rats being stirred up by Sandy. The number of rodent-related citations issued by health inspectors has dropped as well. "Large storms can flush out rats, but they also drown many rats, and the net effect of large storms is often a decrease in the rat population." But we did not see an increase in the rat population," the agency said in a statement.
"The Health Department conducted extensive inspections in flood zones after Hurricane Sandy, provided guidance to home owners and baited the area. Within days, a city councilwoman floated a proposal to create a $500,000 emergency rat mitigation program for storm-impacted neighborhoods.īut the city's health department, which collects reams of data about the rat population and maps infestations looking for trends, said rodent complaints actually had declined since the late October storm, which was spawned when Hurricane Sandy merged with two other weather systems.
Rat in nyc flood tv#
TV stations and newspapers have been rife with reports about rats infesting parked cars and fleeing the East River waterfront for the brownstones of Brooklyn Heights and exterminators enjoying a boom in business.įor some city officials, the last straw came a week ago when a rodent problem forced a two-day closure of Magnolia Bakery, a Manhattan landmark often credited with starting a national cupcake craze. (MORE: A Daily Diary of Superstorm Sandy)
NEW YORK - At the height of Superstorm Sandy, city residents watching seawater pour into the subway system couldn't help but wonder: What will become of all the rats?įour months later, that's still a mystery.Īnd experts aren't so sure about stories of hoards of displaced rodents fleeing the flood zone and taking up residence in buildings that were previously rat-free.
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