NYC Seniors trapped in the dark for days after Sandy

There was no way out.

Thousands of Lower East Side seniors were still trapped in the dark Thursday night, spending a fourth evening in their high-rise apartment buildings without lights, running water, fresh food or heat.

The building complexes that line the eastern end of Grand St. are home to one of the city's largest cluster of elderly residents -- many living too high up to make it outside without a working elevator.

"People are breaking," said Heshy Jacob, 65, who manages 2,500 apartments, part of the East River Housing and Hilman Houses complexes. "Four days with no shower, no toilets. This is criminal."

Jacob, who is also the president of Hatzolah, the city's largest volunteer ambulance service, called in a mobile-command center from the group's Borough Park branch.

"We called OEM (emergency-management operations) to help," said EMT Ari Weiss, 38. "But they are busy with other emergencies. They can't help carry patients down stairs. It's being proactive. We are trying to get people out, to get fresh water, to get their medicine, before it gets worse."

So far, Lower East Side Hatzolah has carried 36 elderly residents from their homes and taken them primarily to Beth Israel Hospital because NYU and Bellevue are without power.

The 35-foot-long trailer has been parked on Grand St., across from Jacob's home, since Hurricane Sandy hit Monday and is packed with teams of medics who've rescued dozens of seniors from as high as 30 floors up.

Fortunate seniors are relying on neighbors, who are lugging bottles of water and cooked meals up pitch-black stairwells.

Meanwhile, Mo Wachsman, 65, and who uses a wheelchair, is struggling to care for his 98-year-old bedridden mother, Ida.

"It's rough. I am stuck in here," Wachsman said as he ate from a tin of macaroons in his living room. For light, he used candles.

Ida Wachsman is deaf and unable to speak. She suffers from a fractured hip. To make matters worse, her home-health aide couldn't get to the pair because the subways weren't working.

"She holds the back of my wheelchair and she wheels me to the kitchen so I can feed her. I am afraid that she is going to fall," Wachsman said.

But amid the pair's multiple miseries, all Wachsman really wants is water.

"The problem is the toilets," he said. "I have to get people to help me throw water down it. The smell. It's horrible.

"It's very bad. I am depressed."




By Simone Weichselbaum / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS