at about 10:30 p.m., the ceo of mt. sinai, dr. kenneth davis, got the call.hin the hour, babies from lang langone started arriving. >> it's frightening, and when you are dealing with tiny babies that are so fragile, it really can be an extraordinary circumstance. >> reporter: in front of nyu medical center, mt. sinai is about four clocks to the west. just over there is the east river. at company 7:00 p.m., there was no water inside that hospital. at 7:45, there was ten feet. the power started to go out and then the generator failed, and then all of a sudden, the patients and the doctors found themselves in a worst-case scenario. as for the parents of little baby martinez, they found out the hospital and their daughter would be evacuated when they watched mayor michael bloomberg on tv. shortly after, they lost power and they had no idea where their baby would be taken. >> confirmed by a family member they were calling me on the phone, because suddenly i lost outage in my apartment. no access to the tv no, access to the internet. no phone service at home. just

ken davis, ceo of mt. sinaijoins us from the third casino to open in ohio in less than a year. brian? >> reporter: well, becky, right behind me we have about 3,000 slot machines and more than 70 gaming tables, part of a national trend, the casinos in for jobs and tax revenue and for a company like penn national gaming it's about the bottom and top line. we'll talk to their president and coo next on "squawk box." [ horn honks ] hey, it's sandra -- from accounting. peter. i can see that you're busy... but you were gonna help us crunch the numbers for accounts receivable today. i mean i know that this is important. well, both are important. let's be clear. they are but this is important too. [ man ] the receivables. [ male announcer ] michelin knows it's better for xerox to help manage their finance processing. so they can focus on keeping the world moving. with xerox, you're ready for real business. >>> is this just gambling? >> it is gambling. they have a convention center where they'll do other things but in ter

when they said they were headed to mt. sinai hospital, he said, how do you get there?ashing down on the ambulance. they got there, and 40 minutes later, baby micah was born. so, how is micah? >> oh, he's beautiful. he's awesome. >> reporter: there are so many families like them, touched by the kindness, the bravery of others. >> there's no words i have to thank them. >> reporter: this mom and dad and their baby, just six hours old, were also carried out of that darkened hospital. >> pretty amazing. saw them just dripping with sweat and carrying women that couldn't walk down the stairs. >> repter: you were the welcoming committee. >> that's right. >> reporter: this was the team waiting at mt. sinai hospital, taking in patients. >> there's no practice for this, never. >> reporter: no practice, but perseverance and pride in what they were doing in those dark hours. happy ending, right? david muir, abc news, new york. >> and thank you so much for watching. we're always here at abcnews.com. "nightline" will be here later and i'll see you again tomorrow night. good night.

sanjay gupta was given exclusive access to the nicu at the mt. sinaital where some of the babies were taken. he joins me now. sanjay, when i heard this, it reminded me so much of some of the things you saw with your own eyes during katrina in new orleans but it's amazing that everybody survived. >> it really is. look, anderson, transporting these patients under any circumstances is difficult, even within the hospital. so just imagine doing that in the middle of a hurricane. there were lots of babies that needed to be transported. some of them very premature. there was this one baby, her name is emma, just 13 days old weighing just two pounds. she was one of those babies that had to be transferred as well. they are very fragile at that particular age and again, transport under any circumstances is challenging. i talked to the ceo of this hospital, mt. sinai which is right over here, dr. kenneth davis, and asked him what was he thinking about when this happened. take a listen. >> it's frightening. it's about as challenging as you can get. when you're dea

your team, if i get this right, 64 of your patients were evacuated in the middle of the night to mt. sinai staff working through the night with 100 volunteers but it's who they were helping that really i guess catches the eye. four newborns on respirators carried down nine flights of stairs as nurses manually squeezed the bags to get air to these babies. how are they all doing is the obvious question now, i guess? >> well, i think by great teamwork and by really focusing on patient safety, all the children were transported safely and made it to the receiving hospitals without any incident which is what we were intending to do. >> ten mothers went to mt. sinai, two of whom gave birth during the night. three were in labor. this is a very dangerous situation. my wife gave birth last year, i couldn't imagine anything worse than in the middle of the night, your baby being rushed on a respirator with nurses manually squeezing bags, because the adult respirators have batteries, through the middle of the night in a hurricane to another hospital. have you ever had anything like this? >> i have to s

and that it's the other hospitals, mt. sinai, for example, when it receives a patient it will then call the next of kin to advise them that the patient has been moved there. >> we also have video in the neighborhood that's called chelsea, where i live in manhattan. i think this is along 8th avenue. and the front of a building just came off. i mean, it looks like a dollhouse. you can actually look into the rooms in that old apartment building. >> right. i believe it was a four-story building. had a business down front and several tenants living above. the whole facade came down. fortunately no one injured in that case. it was a 100-year-old building here in the city. the fire department called in and amid the tough winds literally tried to work to render that building safe and residents on either side of that building also had to be evacuated. >> we haven't talked a lot about connecticut but it's been a very bad night, day and night in connecticut for a number of communities. i know some of these towns. you live in connecticut no

. >> reporter: they were told they would have to evacuate to mt. sinaiical center, four miles away. everyone was in dark, and julia in severe pain. >> just closing my eyes. >> i was holding a cell phone above her while they were putting in the iv and epidural. >> reporter: with all of lower manhattan in the dark, the evacuation was that much more challenging. hundreds of staff pitched in and it took all night to get everyone out. they had discharged hundreds of patients last weekend in advance of the storm. officials are still investigating the cause of the generator failure. rehema ellis, nbc news, new york. >>> we'll be back in a moment with some coverage details for you from this devastating storm. hi, i just switched jobs, and i want to roll over my old 401(k) into a fidelity ira. man: okay, no problem. it's easy to get started; i can help you with the paperwork. um...this green line just appeared on my floor. yeah, that's fidelity helping you reach your financial goals. could you hold on a second? it's your money. roll over your old 401(k) into a fi

dozens of ambulances lined up outside to transport the evacuees to nearby mt. sinai hospital. officials say they had limited phone access and would notify families as the patients arrived. joining us live outside the nyu medical center, lori bordinaro. i was watching the pictures and gripped by them late last night of nurses carrying newborn infants in their arms with another nurse performing man you'll ventilati manual ventilation. >> i know. it's been a huge team effort here as you said of doctors, nurses, and emergency responders trying to get these 215 patients out of nyu langone medical center and to the other hospitals all because that backup generator failed. it's been a very tedious process, one that started well before midnight. still going on at this hour. there were newborn babies being taken out, other patients as well in critical care. they had to carry the patients down the stairs, out the lobby, out into these ambulances that have been lined up along first avenue for several hours. many of the patients again from the neo-natal unit. we saw the newborn being carr

. >> reporter: after 20 minutes, they reached the ground floor and rushed to mt. sinai hospital. but the roads were dangerous. >> as we're driving up 3rd avenue, i hear a loud bang on top of a ambulance. we found out a tree branch had fallen on the ambulance. >> reporter: within minutes of arriving at the hospital, micah was born. >> i've never been in so much pain throughout all of these hours. as soon as he was born, you know, you just forget. >> a little bright spo in the midst of a lot of tragedy. up next, the cleanup continues from super storm sandy. news4 at 5:00 starts right now. >>> another emergency in the new york city area, as hundreds of patients at bellevue hospital are evacuated. the power is coming back on for most of our area as crews remove trees and downed powerlines. >> a mother's heartache today after her daughter was killed on her way to high school. >> i'm just saying that's my baby, that was my youngest child. we all are like, it's unbelievable. >> good evening, everyone. welcome to news4 at 5:00. wendy will be joining me in a moment. most people that lost

from nyu hospital to mt. sinai hospital. circumstances and these were extraordinary. >> it's frightening. about as challenging as you can get. >> reporter: we're in front of nyu medical center. mt. sinai is that way and to the west an enthat's the important point. just over there is the east river. what we now know is 7:00 p.m. there was no water inside that hospital. at 7:45, there was 10 feet. the power started to go out and then the generator failed and all of a sudden the patients and the doctors found themselves in a worst-case scenario. as for the parents of little baby martinez, they found out the hospital and their daughter would be evacuated when they watched mayor michael bloomberg on tv. shortly after, they lost power and they had no idea where their baby would be taken. >> i lost outage in my apartment. we had no access to the tv, no access to internet. no phone services at home. it was just our cell. >> reporter: just imagine the desperation, the nightmare. their 13-day-old baby rushed through the streets of new

mt. sinai is several blocks to the north and four blocks to the west. that's an important point.river. what we now know is that at 7:00 pm there was no water inside that hospital. at 7:45, there was 10 feet. the power started to go out and then the generators failed. and all of a sudden, the patients and the doctors found themselves in a worst case scenario. as for the parents of little baby martinez, they found out the hospital and their daughter would be evacuated when they watched mayor michael bloomberg on tv. shortly after, they lost power and they had no idea where their baby would be taken. >> i lost power in our apartment. we had no access to the tv, internet, no phone services at home. it was just our cell. >> reporter: just imagine the desperation, the nightmare. their 13-day-old baby rushed through the streets of new york city in the middle of hurricane sandy. while they were stuck at home in new jersey. >> all the bridges were closed and we had no choice but to go back home and just sit and wait for today to get here. and it was a very long night. very, very long nigh

chris welsh, we hear nyu hospital has been evacuated because that generator went down and mt. sinai, i understand, is taking in a lot of those patients. where are you we aren't seeing high water but seeing a lot of debris. >> reporter: nyu, bellevue hospital next to each other. nyu, we've been told, has been looking for replacement hospitals for 200 patient they've trying to find a new home for as a result of some of these floods. we don't know exactly what happened, flood in the basement, generator issue that's causing them trouble with 200 patients but we know they're being moved, having trouble with phones although nyu. hospitals will be calling family members, letting them know where new patients are going. i'm in the lower east side of manhattan on east houston and avenue d. where i am, about two hours ago when we first got here, the water would have been right here on me. now over the last hour, hour and a half it has steadily receded. i'm not sure how well you can see that mini van but where the water level is right now, add maybe a foot to that. the officers on the said if y

nine bayne babies were transported from nyu to mt. sinaindy. you can't be epidural by cell phone light. >> wow, what a story. andrea canning, thank you so much. another story. christine and dave had their own dramatic story. they are here with their brand new baby liam. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> well, christine, i want to hear what happened, but first, how are you doing? how is the baby doing? >> we're both doing great. he's -- he's amazing. five weeks premature. he's perfect. >> well, you two are pretty amazing. david, take us through this. christine was five weeks early, experiencing contractions at the height of the storm. you decide we've got to get in the car and drive to the hospital and then what happened? >> well, we actually, because of the road conditions they told us absolutely do not drive, to call the emergency squad, which luckily is only about five minutes from our house, so they get to our house in an ambulance and a couple rescue vehicles. we get christine in the ambulance, and we start going out to the hospi

told thaw the nyu medical center in new york city was being evacuated and now another hospital, mt. sinaias put out a statement that they are evacuating adults in pediatric care, neonatal care and obstetrics. when you have the evacuation of a hospital like nyu, you have other hospitals nearby that are top class facilities able to take in some of those patients and that's what they are doing. but those medical workers, among the people having a very long night and potentially a couple of long days and nights to come. it is 43 minutes past the hour. msnbc's coverage of sandy will continue right after this. [ male announcer ] do you have the legal protection you need? at legalzoom, we've created a better place to turn for your legal matters. maybe you want to incorporate a business you'd like to start. or protect your family with a will or living trust. legalzoom makes it easy with step-by-step help when completing your personalized document -- or you can even access an attorney to guide you along. with an "a" rating from the better business bureau legalzoom helps you get personalized and af

we got a statement from mt. sinai hospital they were all ready to go, ready to accept the patients. there's been no difficulties in spite of the obvious challenges there? >> reporter: absolutely, chris, fire truck going behind us. we have no reports of any difficulties. no reports of any panic or any chaos, but you have to imagine how unsettling it might be for a patient and we're even told that they're evacuating some pediatric patients, some children are being taken out of the hospital to other places, so -- and in some instances maybe their parents may not be with them. pretty unsettling for the patients but by all indications and reports it's going pretty smoothly. >> let me ask you to shift gears. before we asked you to go downtown to cover these evacuations from nyu medical center you were up at midtown, one of the most dramatic scenes unfolded earlier in the day when a crane collapsed on top of a high-rise apartment building that is under construction. tell us about what happened there, rehema. >> reporter: it's a $1.5 billion luxury high-rise under construction in midtown ma

. >> ten mothers went to mt. sinai, two of whom gave birth during the night. three were in labor. is a very dangerous situation. i mean, my wife gave birth last year. i couldn't imagine anything worse than in the middle of the night your baby being rushed on a respirator with nurses manually squeezing bags, because the adult respirators had batteries, through the middle of the night in a hurricane to another hospital. i mean, have you ever had anything like this? >> i have to say this is the first time but we have highly trained staff, so we're always prepared for any emergency with any baby, so every staff is trained to be able to bag a baby in order to keep them well aerated and oxygenated, and that's why through the use of our very highly trained nurses, physicians and assistants we were able to get all these babies to the receiving hospitals very, very safely. >> are you confident now that everyone's going to be okay as a result of all the moving that went on last night? >> yes. we did a very careful review of every patient before we transported them out. we had, as i said, a

. >> we now know that 64 of those evacuated were taken to mt. sinai medical center.. sanjay gupta. first to you, dr. davis. what was it like when these 64 patients from the nyu medical center arrived at mt. sinai? >> well, they started to come, just before midnight, and we were able to slowly bring them to each of their units. each of our units. >> this is a difficult procedure. how many of the patients were in critical condition? what was going on? >> well, there are about 30 patients who were in intensive care units. so they were very critical patients. there were another ten patients who were women who were just -- who had just given birth or were about to give birth. so these were some very critical circumstances. keep in mind that nyu had decreased their census from some 750 patients to the 250 that remained for the hurricane. so those were the really difficult patients that they couldn't discharge. so by and large, all these people were seriously ill and needed health care. >> sanjay, go ahead. >> and nyu is right along the east river, and they say they got abo

luke's, mt. sinail, they received surgical patients several of them and they went along with doctors that volunteered to continue working in the transition. talk about exchange of medical information. no records. no paper charts. that's the down side of electronic -- liz: there's a dispute about whether or not the hospitals got an order from the city to evacuate. did you hear about that dispute? what did the hospitals receive an order to evacuate as they did before hurricane irene? >> no, i have seen all the e-mails on this. they didn't receive an order before to evacuate the hospital. however, they made a very wise decision to evacuate the hospital when they lost power. and i think the key here is that they did it without anyone dying. charles: right. that's -- >> charles, as you said, can they anticipate something like this? the problem here is the generators are in the basement. that may not be the best place for all the generators. charles: again, listen, we're monday morning quarterbacking here. s

when she got into the city, she was told her little girl was taken to mt. sinai hospital.re, she found her. another newborn saved by the heroic nurses. >> my daughter couldn't have been here right now. >> reporter: those parents so thankful. i spent some of the overnight with them at that hospital they've been moved to. both babies fine, arianna and cole. little cole, i'm told, a little cold, in fact, as he was moving to the next hospital because it was raining. but the doctors say he's going to be just fine. it will be quite a thanksgiving for those families. >> david, thanks so much. >> what a story they're going to have. >> they'll tell him later. >>> time, now, for another check of the weather and sam champion. sam? >> yeah. good morning. you can feel the chill in the air behind sandy as it pulls away and brings this cold air in. but let's look at the weather maps this morning. we'll show you what that cold air is really doing when it hits some elevation. we're getting incredible reports of snow in the mountains of west virginia. also into maryland, into the mountains

lukes, to mt. sinai, cornell. jenna: doctor if i could, there is a woman on our screen right there. bring that picture back full guys in the control room. she is holding ability tiny baby. we don't know if that is the nurse holding the little baby or the mother who gave birth. there were very small infants moved out of the hospital. how much danger were they in? >> they were in quite a bit. four of the babies were literally brought out with people bagging them, pushing air into their lungs. nobody died in transfer. they sent doctors with them. in order to get the other hospitals to accept the patients doctors, surgeons, medical doctors went with the patients and will work with them over the next day to help them transfer to make sure nothing is lost and that they do well in the next hospital. this occurred because the generators downstairs got covered with water and they weren't expecting this much water. the floods caused this. jenna: just going back to the pictures, there is another little child, again as you were mentioning getting some treatment there, getting moved to another h

sanjay gupta is talking with doctors at mt. sinaiok in some of the patients that elizabeth was telling us about. he'll have that story tonight and we'll be live at 8:00 tonight. up next, wolf blitzer joins me on president obama's visit to new jersey, which will occur tomorrow, alongside governor chris christie. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro. governor of getting it done. you know how to dance... with a deadline. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle... and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. this is awesome. [ male announcer ] yes, it is, business pro. yes, it is. go national. go like a pro. >>> people living in milford, connecticut, are heading down by the water to check on the damage to their homes. ali reed from wtnh is there. >> reporter: you can see that shed right there in the middle. apparently residents told me that during the height of the storm last night, that shed was going all over this road here. now, even just about

it was right up there with the tablets that moses brought down from mt. sinai. [laughter] then it dropped below 8%, and they say the whole thing is rate. you can understand that. we have all worked hard for something and just almost gotten there, and it broke our hearts. they came so close. they almost kept unemployment above 8% all the way to the election, but they failed, and i want you to know that the drop from 9.0% to 7.8% does not sound like much, but it is the biggest one-share drop in unemployment in 17 years. so, you just have to decide. [applause] governor romney's argument is fire him and put me in because we are not fixed. it is true. we are not fixed. when president obama looked into the eyes of the man who said i had so much hope four years ago and i do not now, i thought he was going to cry, because he knows it is not fixed, but the question is which path will fix? what the american people have to decide is whether they believe people like me, who are a little bit on the outside of this, that this was the biggest economic crash since the great dep

and then i've had people in from mt. sinaiwell, cigarettes, you want -- it's like cigarettes, you don't want to tax cigarettes. and i go, well, red meat 20 years ago was the cause of all heart disease, and oh, that may not be the end all be all. >> i eat lots of red meat. >> no, it's not -- >> i eat lots of red meat, joe. and i drink about 60 ounces, about five 12-ounce cans of cherry coke a day. and that's 750 calories but i elect to get -- i'm going to -- >> your prerogative. >> 750 of them are going to be cherry coke. and my doctor told me said drink more liquids and i said, you know, i said how about cherry coke. he says it's fine. >> insanity. it's insanity, and someone needs to tell this guy that. although he's going to be every republican's favorite democrat. andrew, god, if he ran for president, you'd be out there, you'd have 40 signs in your yard, bloomberg for president. >> i've got to say, mayor bloomberg has done a lot of terrific things. all kinds of things. >> this ruins it. >> i've also had dinner with him in su

it was right up there with the tablets that moses brought down from mt. sinai. [laughter] then it dropped below 8%, and they say the whole thing is rate. -- was rigged. you can understand that. we have all worked hard for something and just almost gotten there, and it broke our hearts. they came so close. they almost kept unemployment above 8% all the way to the election, but they failed, and i want you to know that the drop from 9.0% to 7.8% does not sound like much, but it is the biggest one-share drop in unemployment in 17 years. so, you just have to decide. [applause] governor romney's argument is fire him and put me in because we are not fixed. it is true. we are not fixed. when president obama looked into the eyes of the man who said i had so much hope four years ago and i do not now, i thought he was going to cry, because he knows it is not fixed, but the question is which path will fix? what the american people have to decide is whether they believe people like me, who are a little bit on the outside of this, that this was the biggest economic crash sinc