NYC parents recall ‘crazy’ Hurricane Sandy baby birth, 10 years later

Outside the eighth-floor Manhattan delivery room, there was devastating flooding and destruction and death as Superstorm Sandy unleashed its lethal fury across the five boroughs.

Inside, a pair of first-time parents welcomed newborn Stone Weinstock, his arrival — improbably and a tad eerily — illuminated only by nurses clutching glow sticks.

It was Oct. 29, 2012, with the power knocked out citywide, when Tamar Weinstock and her husband Allon greeted their first-born inside the darkened room at NYU-Langone Hospital, a 7-pound, 10-ounce miracle amid the madness.

“It was pitch-black when Stone arrived, like looking through a camera with a lens cap on,” recalled Allon, looking back as his son’s 10th birthday looms. “We were waiting, waiting, waiting. And then we heard a baby crying. It was pretty impressive.”

The couple recounted their amazing gift of life on a day when the storm killed 44 New Yorkers and wreaked havoc across the the city, with $19 billion in damages left behind before Sandy was gone.

“There was definitely something very pure about it,” said Allon. “People have different crazy stories about childbirth, but this just happens to be ours.”

Tamar shared a similar recollection: “It was such an intimate setting.”

Tamar Weinstock, now 42, was about three weeks away from her due date when it became clear the baby was coming early. She and her husband left their Queens home for the Manhattan hospital on the morning of the storm, driving through an unnervingly quiet city and arriving around 10 a.m. in the calm before the coming tempest.

“No one was on the road,” recalled Allon of their ride to the hospital with his mom. “I know they shut down the tunnels a few hours after we got through.”

As the hours passed and the storm surged, the raging winds and pounding rain knocked out the hospital’s power. The basement generators on 550 First Ave. were also idled by floodwaters from the nearby East River, with the computers and medical machinery silenced as the back-up system disappeared.

Tamar Weinstrock, lying in her hospital bed before the birth, recalled watching the hospital workers huddled around her like a football team before the Super Bowl kickoff.

“They were kind of standing in a circle — ‘OK, we’re going to do this, let’s go!’” she said. “Like hands-in, it’s go team. It’s go time.”

Stone was one of five babies delivered on the eighth floor, with cellphone flashlight apps used in some of the other arrivals as medical students chipped in to ensure the safe delivery of all the newborns before the clock hit midnight.

“I remember it as being quite beautiful,” said Dr. William Schweizer, the mom’s obstetrician who worked through the night. “The glow sticks almost delivered a campfire appearance. No monitors, just listening to everything with stethoscopes. I just felt such camaraderie.”

Allon shared a recollection of the low-tech birth, when one of the nurses asked a doctor about measuring the newborn’s heartbeat.

“He handed the nurse a stethoscope to do it manually, along with a pencil and pad to write it down,” he said.

Fabia Contratti, 62, the nurse manager for labor and delivery, was working a double-shift when the Weinstock family arrived amid the chaos. She recalled the staff responding without hesitation to the unprecedented situation, united in their purpose.

“We were in every room,” said Contratti, who oversaw all the births and the hospital’s evacuation. “We were all together, and we were supportive.”

Contratti said she was eager to see the parents and their kids on the 10th anniversary of the births, when the hospital plans to host them all for a reunion.

She proudly remembers the staff pulling together to handle the multiple deliveries despite the unprecedented complications, with workers even using walkie-talkies to communicate when the phone system went out.

“No electricity, no computers and no water,” recalled Contratti. “We did it. We did it.”

Tamar Weinstock — whose second son was nearly born inside an Uber — offers nothing but warm memories of the once-in-a-lifetime scenario.

“It was light-hearted despite the situation,” she said. “It was not in any way a stressful experience. It was just a matter of fact, let’s do this, let’s go.”

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