[From ThinkProgress] On October 29, as Superstorm Sandy downed power lines and flooded New York streets, 300 patients were evacuated from New York University’s Langone Medical Center after one of its backup generators, located in the basement, was knocked out. Twenty babies in neonatal intensive care went first, followed by the sickest adults. The evacuation took about 15 hours to complete.

Langone wasn’t the only hospital to need an emergency evacuation during or in the aftermath of Sandy. Coney Island hospital’s electrical switch room was inundated with floodwater, forcing the hospital to evacuate 260 patients, and Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital evacuated after hurricane damage caused “Katrina-esque” conditions in the facility. Long Beach Medical Center is still closed as a result of severe damage, and officials have stopped predicting when it might reopen...(Continue reading)