The night that Hurricane Sandy struck, Coney Island Hospital’s emergency room flooded, the lights and phones went out and a fire raged outside.
“It was like we were alone on an island all by ourselves and we had to take care of the patients,” chief nurse Terry Mancher recalled Thursday.
Next time will be different — thanks to the second-largest grant in FEMA history, which will give four city hospitals a $1.6 billion shot in the arm, Mayor de Blasio and Sen. Charles Schumer announced Thursday.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency cash will prepare Coney Island and Bellevue hospitals for future storms and will also fund improvements at Metropolitan Hospital Center in Manhattan and Coler Specialty Hospital on Roosevelt Island.
Coney Island Hospital will get $923 million to build a 1,720 foot floodwall and a new flood-proof building to house the ER, X-ray, MRI and pharmacy.
The other hospitals are also building floodwalls, and Bellevue is moving its drinking water and fuel pumps to higher elevations and installing new drainage pumps.
“This money will allow us to do the kinds of things we know are necessary for resiliency,” de Blasio said.
Schumer hailed changes to FEMA rules that allow storm aid money to beef up facilities’ protections, instead of rebuilding them exactly as they were before.
“The patients and our community will never have to worry about another hurricane here,” said Mancher.
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