That may seem inconsequential, but consider this: Hoeffer is an assistant professor in the Department of Physiology and Neuroscience at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. He researches human learning and memory—specifically, how they are affected by neurological and neurodegenerative disorders like autism, down syndrome and Alzheimer’s. To study these conditions, he uses live mice.

“I essentially have a little mouse circus downstairs,” Hoeffer said of his lab in the basement of the Joan and Joel Smilow Research Center, one of Langone’s many buildings between East 30th and 34th streets and First Avenue and FDR Drive. These are not mice you see scurrying across the street: They are carefully bred to replicate specific genes involved in human disorders, for instance, or to have other exact traits. Producing these exact mice can take months, even a year, of studious cross-breeding, depending on the complexity of the trait needed.

“You can’t replace the time,” Hoeffer said. “That’s the real loss.”

On Monday, Oct. 29, Hoeffer watched from his apartment building next door as his downstairs lab along with the rest of Langone’s lower floors filled with floodwater. The damage was swift, the result of a storm surge that pushed the East River’s water beyond First Avenue along the Upper East Side. Langone’s backup generator failed in the middle of the night, forcing staff at the center’s hospital to evacuate hundreds of patients and jeopardizing any materials throughout the center that needed refrigeration to survive.

Langone had vivariums (cages that house lab animals) spread throughout the center, some in basements and others at higher levels. NYU is still in the midst of assessing the extent of damages to its faculty’s research projects, but Hoeffer explained that these damages varied significantly from researcher to researcher. In terms of mice, some people who kept them in above-ground facilities were totally unaffected, while others who worked exclusively in underground labs suffered more crippling losses.

For Hoeffer, things could have been much worse, he said. He worked below ground in Smilow, but also has mice above-ground in a satellite lab. “We’re still trying to find out what we lost exactly,” he noted, “but I think that almost all our losses are pretty quickly replaceable.”

Neither Hoeffer nor NYU had specific estimates of the number of mice killed. Hoeffer tended about 300 mice, but bigger labs, he said, kept up to 6,000. It is still unclear how many of these mice were caged high enough in labs to avoid floodwater or removed in advance.

Hoeffer was optimistic about the recovery process, and pointed out many silver linings to the destruction. “The community definitely got closer,” he said, and also mentioned thankfully that researchers across the country—and world—offered their support in the wake of the storm, sharing data and donating supplies.

A disaster like this shows “what’s really important to human health and science,” Hoeffer said, “what really needs to get done, and what kind of things you can live without.”

During the flooding, NYU’s Division of Laboratory Animal Resources (DLAR) worked throughout the night, and the following days, to save what remaining animals they could after removing as many animals as possible days in advance of the storm. DLAR’s director, who asked not to be named for protection from animal rights groups, said that floodwater rushed into basement facilities “like [on] the Titanic.”

The director noted that a number of mice in vivariums high off the floor of flooded labs were found alive and well last week. Some had babies.

Hoeffer explained, “It’s not this complete tragic situation. It’s not cataclysmic. The great thing about science is that you can change your question or change your approach. You can still do important things, just not the way you originally planned.”

New Yorkers helped re-elect President Barack Obama last week, but not without some technical difficulties.

The damages wrought on the city by Hurricane Sandy prompted New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to issue an order that residents who had evacuated their homes could vote at any poll site in the state by using affidavit ballots. Many sites failed to get word of the order, which went out only the day before the election, however, and some city polls quickly ran out of the 250 affidavits that the city printed for each election district.

Jammed ballot scanners added to the confusion of relocated polling sites and affidavits, which together resulted in lines that stretched blocks. At some sites, voters waited three hours or more to cast their votes.

The city’s Upper East and Upper West sides were particularly burdened with delays. Many storm-struck New York residents fled to friends’ and relatives’ homes in the city’s less-damaged neighborhoods last week, so these polling sites were disproportionately crowded.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg criticized the Board of Elections for failing to be organized. The Board of Elections, in turn, argued that it did not have enough time to train poll workers following Cuomo’s order.

LANGONE MEDICAL CENTER REOPENS OUTPATIENT FACILITIES

After a backup generator failure and subsequent full evacuation during Hurricane Sandy, New York University’s Langone Medical Center made progress last week toward fully reopening by resuming outpatient care on Friday.

The award-winning medical center, which includes the NYU School of Medicine and three hospitals, re-launched its ambulatory care centers and faculty group practices earlier in the week, and by Friday was fully equipped to take on short-term (non-overnight) patients.

The medical center’s First Avenue location near East 32nd Street made it particularly susceptible to East River flooding, which knocked out the backup generator and caused extensive damage to the buildings’ lower levels. The medical center predicts that it was hit by a storm surge of close to 14 feet. Hospital workers spent hours on Oct. 29 moving patients out of the buildings during the storm, some down many flights of stairs. Patients were moved to other hospitals in the city, including St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital, Mount Sinai and Lenox Hill.

As of Monday, the Langone Medical Center’s inpatient (long-term) services, labs, pharmacy and emergency department remained closed. NYU was still assessing the extent of the damage to the building and its facilities caused by the storm, and no official full reopening date for the medical center had been set.

CITY RATIONS GASOLINE

In its second week of fuel shortage following Hurricane Sandy, New York City began rationing gasoline last Friday in an attempt to restock its dwindling supply. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced on Thursday, Nov. 9, that gas stations would begin restricting sales to vehicles with even-numbered license plates on even days of the month and odd-numbered plates on odd days. (Taxis, buses and emergency vehicles were exempted.)

The rationing came despite Bloomberg’s and Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s earlier assurances that fuel supplies would return to normal shortly after the storm. Hurricane Sandy jeopardized supplies by cutting power to gas stations across the city, damaging refineries and crippling the fuel distribution network of ports and terminals. Last week’s nor’easter delayed replenishment efforts by interrupting petroleum terminal repairs and further slowing fuel shipments.

In his announcement, Bloomberg noted that the shortage could last another week or more. He also said that only a fourth of the city’s roughly 800 gas stations were in operation at any given time. The NYPD assigned police officers to all open stations last week to keep order. At some stations, waits in line stretched beyond three hours.