Hospitals Evacuate in Wake of Sandy

Patients at NYU Langone Medical Center were evacuated late Monday, Oct. 29, after the hospital’s emergency power system failed amidst the high winds of post-tropical storm Sandy, according to numerous media reports. It is unknown what caused the emergency generator to fail.

The hospital began moving about 215 patients Monday evening, with ambulances taking them to nearby facilities, including Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and The Mount Sinai Hospital, The New York Times reports.

According to that report, NYU Langone began experiencing issues Monday evening as large-scale power failures spread to critical areas, including the emergency room, the transplant unit, and labor and delivery. Phones were down and patients at times had to be connected to battery-operated machines. As of Tuesday morning, the facility’s website remained down.

In a statement, Mount Sinai says it's coordinating with NYU Langone to accept its evacuated patients in the areas of adult critical care, pediatric critical care, neonatal intensive care, and obstetrics. Mount Sinai is allocating two post-operative surgical units for many of these patients, who are being accompanied by NYU Langone staff and physicians.

The Times also reports that Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn lost its backup power system, as well. No evacuations were needed thanks to critical patients being moved on Friday, Oct. 26, in storm preparations.

And Coney Island Hospital wasn’t alone. According to ABC News, Hoboken University Medical Center, VA New York Harbor Hospital, and New York Downtown Hospital were also evacuated before the storm hit. Critically ill patients at North Shore-LIJ Health System‘s Staten Island University Health Center and Southside Hospital, too, were preemptively transported to alternate facilities.

Dozens of other hospitals along the East Coast have canceled appointments, including outpatient care and elective surgeries.