Babies Evacuated in Manhattan

By CBS and COLlive

New York University Hospital’s backup power, in spite of them assuring that it’s been tested, stopped working and we’re working with them to help move people out, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

NYU Langone Medical Center’s backup generator failed when power went out in lower Manhattan earlier Monday evening.

ABC says there are 215 patients -including babies- currently being taken out, many of whom are “having trouble getting in contact with their families.”

“I am seeing dozens of ambulances heading to and from NYU,” Shlucha Brocha Metzger told COLlive.com.

In Manhattan, 250,000 customers are without power after an explosion at a Con Ed generator, and some after preemptive closures. Most residents below 39th Street have no electricity – the Metzgers are one of them.

While her husband, Shliach Rabbi Yehoshua Metzger is inside with the children in the dark after losing power in their home, she is huddling out in her car, charging her phone, and listening to the radio to hear what’s going on, Mrs. Metzger describes.

“Hardly a soul out here in the heart of Midtown. No cars. Nary a living soul save for a doorman with his flashlight and 2 dog-walkers. Streetlamps dark too. Just the howling wind and the shadow of looming tall buildings. The car is rocking in the wind. Eerie.”

Much of New York was plunged into darkness Monday by a storm that overflowed the city’s historic waterfront, flooded the financial district and subway tunnels and cut power to nearly a million people.

The city had shut its mass transit system, schools, the stock exchange and Broadway and ordered hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to leave home to get out of the way of the superstorm Sandy as it zeroed in on the nation’s largest city.

Television images showed water rising to historic heights in lower Manhattan, including flooding in the city’s tunnels and subways.

While Chabad centers have cancelled classes and some programs, Chabad of Midtown Manhattan kept open despite the power outage Monday evening, Metzger said.

Still, even when Starbucks and the NY Stock exchange were closed today, Metzger reports – Chabad of Midtown was open. Rabbi Metzger was there from 7:45 am as usual.

“While numerous shuls on the residential Upper East and West Sides canceled their minyanim, there were 3 minyanim at Chabad of Midtown today,” she reported.

Video: Water floods the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in Lower Manhattan