UWG Alumnus Shares His Experience Exploring the Underground Flood Channels of Las Vegas

The University of West Georgia welcomed back UWG alumnus, journalist and activist Matthew O’Brien to discuss his book Beneath the Neon, Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas; and the Shine a Light Foundation, a nonprofit organization he started to help the homeless communities living in the storm drains under Las Vegas.

UWG Professor of Political Science Sal Peralta and Professor of Creative Writing Alison Umminger, led the discussion.

O’Brien moved to Vegas after his graduation from UWG in 1995, with dreams of becoming an established writer. He began working at a magazine called Las Vegas City Life and worked his way up to Managing Editor. While in his early career, O’Brien read an article in the Las Vegas Review Journal about a murderer who had been on the run. The man was captured, but had originally evaded police using the underground flood channels of Las Vegas. O’Brien found inspiration here.

“There’s about 300 miles of underground channels in Las Vegas, and I thought if I explored as many of them as I could, there was bound to be a book there,” said O’Brien.

He started following Timmy ‘TJ’ Weber, the escape murderer’s trail, then followed other tunnels and interviewed the homeless. The book opens with O’Brien describing just how terrified he was to enter. He writes compellingly and applies fictional elements to his non-fictional writing, using descriptive language and vivid imagery like the entrance “drooling with algae”, and the “mildewy air”. He places the reader in his shoes, leaving them wondering how he mustered up the courage to continue.

“I went down there on edge, terrified,” said O’Brien. “But then I met some really cool people.”

He met a man named Lawrence who slept on an elevated cot near the ceiling and was able to recite original poetry off the top of his head. O’Brien also met Billy, a man who’d survived the storm drains and had made a life for himself. He keeps in touch with him to this day, and regards him as a friend.

“I realized several years later that a lot of people I met in the tunnels had gotten off the drugs, quit gambling, found jobs and reunited with family,” said O’Brien. “I felt obligated to tell their stories, how they can change and did change.”

O’Brien’s experience in the drains gave him a new outlook on life, and made him more grateful for what he has. His greatest hope in publishing his book was that a nonprofit organization, or the government would help the people down there; his worst fear being that the police would sweep them out. But when nothing was done, he decided he wanted to give something back to them. That’s when he started taking things like socks, hats and bottles of water to the homeless people in the drains. It eventually became a community project.

“People started donating stuff to me,” said O’Brien. “I became a middleman for the homeless, and anyone who wanted to help them.”

He made connections with nonprofits and started taking their social workers to operate housing, it only grew from there. Shine a Light now has a large headquarters with a barbershop, storage room and housing where hundreds of people a year come, and it’s all staffed by individuals who used to live in the tunnels.