Benke added: "I'm alone in a dark tunnel where spent nuclear fuel will decay for millennia. I'm standing at a spot where, starting from 2025, no human should set foot for 100,000 years.

Almost as soon as the rails were pulled up in 1942, bats moved into the old railroad tunnel just south of Fredericksburg on Old San Antonio Road. Millions of bats make the tunnel their home in the ...