Hurricane Sandy fallout: New York's Bellevue Hospital evacuating about 500 patients

New York's Bellevue Hospital Center, which has been operating on backup generators since the massive storm Sandy took out power across parts of the city, is being evacuated, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Wednesday.

About 500 patients are affected by the evacuation of the city hospital located near the East River in Manhattan, but not in the worst part of Manhattan's flooded areas.

Several area hospitals have been contacted about the evacuation and are coordinating efforts to take on some Bellevue patients, including The Mount Sinai Hospital and St Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center.

"We learned this morning that Bellevue will now have to evacuate because of damage that it has sustained," Bloomberg told a news conference.

"They didn't think the damage was that bad and they had a generator going. But the bottom line is when they got into the basement they realized there was more damage. This is going to affect something like 500 patients," Bloomberg said.

The mayor said the process of finding beds for evacuated patients was underway.

Jarron Franklyn, 28, who works in Bellevue's rehabilitation department said: "The power is down and we have flooding in the basement."

He said a back-up generator was still running