Sandy's nurses.

• Author: Jaffe, Sarah
• Position: New York nurses volunteered during Hurricane Sandy

When Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, e president of the New York State Nurses" Association, and an emergency room nurse at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, arrived at the Rockaways after Superstorm Sandy struck, she found stranded people making do with what they had. Some of the residents were cooking the food they had left in the remnants of a flooded lobby. Others were stuck in their high-rise public housing apartments, afraid to or unable to come out for help. The nurses, along with volunteers coordinated by Occupy Sandy, went door to door, taking medical histories and trying as best they could to provide care.

"We realized on the ground that Occupy was the organization that was willing to do whatever was needed," Sheridan-Gonzalez says. "I personally tried to hook up with such groups as the Red Cross, FEMA, all these other agencies, the department of health. They were all subject to such a hierarchical, bureaucratic command structure. It was very difficult to just dig in."

In the Rockaways, Occupy volunteer and labor organizer Nastaran Mohit helped create a pop-up medical clinic where nurse and physician volunteers saw patients regularly and canvassers continued to reach out to the community.

Staten Island University Hospital Nurse Pat Kane and another group of nurses brought the union's RV down to Miller Field, where, she says, one of the biggest challenges was convincing FEMA ambulance drivers to go out with nurses to find people in need. After a few days, though, Kane says, the mayor's office acknowledged their work and the National Guard began bringing information on medical needs directly to the nurses.

But the city shut down the official center at Miller Field while Kane and her colleagues still were providing care. This pushed the nurses to work even more closely with community groups.

"It was devastating work to do but at the same time, you saw that your skills were being used," says Mary Fitzgerald, a nurse at Montefiore and member of the union's political action committee.

With more than 500 members providing frontline care across the city, the nurses quickly realized the limits of the DIY volunteer effort.

"As nurses, a lot of times we step in and say; I'll fix it, but sometimes you have to say, I can't always step in and fix it," says Fitzgerald. "There are certain systems that are broken--we have to collectively voice that."

After her second trip to the Rockaways, Sheridan-Gonzalez and a volunteer doctor from Physicians for...