sympathies

The devastation from the storm has been widely broadcast, with plenty of misery, destruction, and heartbreak to go around.  And I am tremendously sorry for all the losses – both of life and property - that people up and down the East Coast and in the Caribbean have suffered. 

But as a scientist, what has been on my mind frequently has been the fate of the universities and institutions that suffered power loss and other water damage during the storm.  While I am tremendously glad that no patients died during the flooding, consequent power outages, and evacuations of these institutions, the extent of damage is not yet know and will take weeks and even months to assess.  

My heart goes out to all the graduate students and scientists who lost months or even years worth of work and precious scientific resources and samples, many of them irreplaceable.  The stories coming out of the affected institutions are astonishing: students checking on their labs during the storm, a dry-ice brigade that moved 2500 lbs of ice up thirteen flights of stairs to save cold samples, to the story the national guards and other military personnel transporting an entire minus-80 degree freezer complete with samples down eight flights of stairs to try to save it.  I applaud what I will not lightly call heroic efforts on behalf of both patients and science.

Our sympathies are with all of you who suffered as a result of the hurricane.