Hurricane Sandy’s flood waters inundated the basement of Staten Island University Hospital - Northwell Health with several inches of water.

The staff at the facility on Seaview Avenue had to pivot from hospital work of pumping out water.

“They had the built-in sump pumps that are always there. And then they actually had hand pumps that were actually pumping the water out of the area into higher ground with people standing over it so it was literally women and men standing over these sump pumps making sure that they continued to operate and then actually physically moving them from place to make sure that we stayed operational,” Staten Island University Hospital Executive Director, Brahim Ardolic, said.

It was a close call a decade ago.

The utility plant back then was built in 1977 at just seven feet above the mean sea level.

“I mean, no one can say that there wasn’t some luck involved and us not flooding out,” Ardolic said.

Ten years later, the hospital unveiled a new power plant — over 10 feet higher.

It’s 18 feet above the mean sea level.

The price tag for the facility that will power the hospital is over $100 million — nearly half of which was covered by the federal government.

Staten Island has no public hospitals, and this is just one of the three hospitals in the borough.

“This is the tertiary care medical center for Staten Island and you can’t put this at risk and how do you take it out of risk for a regular storm,” Ardolic said.

With the new plant, the hospital said it’s better prepared for the next storm and therefore the risk to the community’s overall health will be diminished.

Officials said they will spend the next few months transferring power to the new plant, and bring it fully on line in the new year.