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Three months after Hurricane Sandy blew out the lights of the Langone Medical Center, the hospital is beginning to calculate the monetary costs of recovering from the storm.
NYU’s Langone Medical Center is in the process of applying for funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to compensate for Hurricane Sandy-related repairs.

Most recently, FEMA approved an award of 35.5 million dollars for such costs, adding to the 114 million dollars in funds previously allocated to Langone in late November. This brings the total emergency relief fund from FEMA to the medical center to approximately 149 million dollars.

“Funds are being processed by FEMA and [New York State] in increments and these are part of the flow of funding we expected,” said Langone spokesperson Lisa Greiner. “There will be many other applications for FEMA funds in the months to come as we come to better understand the full extent of the damage we incurred and the costs for repair as well as mitigation of future risks.”

According to a FEMA press release, this latest installment of grants will cover 75 percent of all costs related to water and leaked oil removal from seven of the center’s buildings. The grants are also intended to cover the repair of the Smilow Research Center, which lost a significant amount of lab material and animals due to basement flooding during Sandy.
The funds are being provided under FEMA’s Public Assistance program, which covers disaster costs for certain nonprofit organizations.

As the medical center continues to tabulate the costs of its Sandy relief efforts, the actual process of recovery is nearing an end. NYU Langone hopes to have all of its facilities operational by the end of January 2013, according to Greiner.

Hanqing Chen is assistant managing editor. Email her at [email protected].