Power Failure At New York City Hospital: 200 Evacuated

As Hurricane Sandy hit New York City last night, massive flooding and winds took out the power from the New York University Tisch Hospital. Initial reports said that the power outages were caused by an explosion at an electrical substation. The cause of the explosion is not yet known.

After the first power outages, the backup generator failed at the hospital. The hospital equipment can run for short periods of time via battery power, but the patients had to be quickly evacuated. The elevators were also out of power and so the nurses and doctors had to carefully carry the patients down the stairs.

Many of the patients evacuated had serious conditions, such as cancer. There were 20 babies evacuated from the neonatal intensive care unit.

The patients were all taken to hospitals that had full power, such as Mount Sinai and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer, Lenox and Bellvue. There are no reports of patients having health effects related to the loss of power.

Source: CBS