It was during H. Betsy ('65) or H. Camille ('69) that one enterprising fellow spent all his spare time stealing all the charged 12 volt batteries he could find from parked cars both during and after the storm, to keep an Iron Lung ventilator going for a paralyzed patient until either the power came back on or what passed for EMS back in the day could evacuate the patient. I think that NOPD may have caught him stealing the batteries, thinking that at first he was a looter, but he took them back to the home bound patient in the Iron Lung, and they helped to arrange for the evacuation.
At Charity Hospital in New Orleans, during and after H. Katrina, teams worked around the clock, for days, to hand bag ventilator patients, after the power went out, until they could be taken across flooded Tulane Ave to be air evacuated from the roof of Tulane Hospital. I think the CHNO generators were on the ground floor or in the basement, but the hospital was without back-up power because of the flooding.
You really don't really know how good you have it, until the power goes out!
