Emergency Room Service Resumes In Long Beach Nearly Three Years After Sandy

LONG BEACH, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- Around-the-clock emergency medical care has returned to Long Beach for the first time since Superstorm Sandy.

The 162-bed Long Beach Medical Center was closed down after it was destroyed by 12-foot floodwaters in the Oct. 29, 2012 storm.

Listen to Emergency Room Service Resumes In Long Beach Nearly Three Years After Sandy

Afterward, temporary military tents went up to treat city residents. They were replaced with a mobile emergency center, but plans to rebuild were scuttled when the medical center went bankrupt. It needed at least $56 million in repairs.

Parent company South Nassau Communities Hospital stepped in and decided to bring a 24-hour emergency department to the area, in addition to an urgent care facility that opened last year.

New emergency department in Long Beach. (credit: Sonia Rincon/1010 WINS)

It will handle urgent cases, but not acute trauma cases, which will be taken to hospitals in Oceanside, East Meadow, and Mineola.

"[This] is a milestone in the comeback for the barrier island, we are much more complete today than we were yesterday," State Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky said.

"It is state of the art, it is a real good place," South Nassau Board Chairman Joe Fennessy said.

South Nassau had said financially a full-fledged hospital will not work there.