Sandy tore through New York, New Jersey, and other surrounding neighborhoods, bringing the Tri-State area to its knees. Disaster recovery plans were positioned on a national stage due to the unpredictable and volatile severity of the damage. Although facilities attempted to prepare accordingly, there were four major hospitals in particular that were crippled and remained closed even weeks after the passing of the hurricane.
- NYU Langone Medical Center prepared for flooding with back-up generators; but when push came to shove, over ten feet of water had made its way into the basement. In addition, years of expensive, important research were lost when lab mice and other specimen drowned in the basement deluge.
- Bellevue Hospital Center, the oldest Public hospital in the country, properly stored back-up generators on the 13th floor. However, the pumps that fuel those generators were located in the basement, which ended up under three feet of water.
- Coney Island Hospital stored generators, emergency room support technologies, IT servers, and electric systems in their flooded basement. The hospital had to be evacuated the afternoon after the storm crashed down.
- The Manhattan VA Medical Center sustained such severe flooding that they are not predicting a reopening of outpatient services until March 2013. The hospital had to evacuate its patients on October 28th, and lost expensive equipment such as MRI machines and other clinical items.