On Tuesday, February 12, 2013, one guest in the First Lady’s box was Menchu de Luna Sanchez, a Registered Nurse at New York University Langone Medical Center. When Hurricane Sandy cut the power at NYU Langone Medical Center, Sanchez devised a plan to transport twenty at-risk infants to intensive care units around the city. She organized the nurses and doctors to carefully carry the babies down eight flights of stairs with only cell phones to light the way. Even as her own home was flooding, she thought only of protecting the babies in her care.
Sanchez was born, raised, and educated in the Philippines and she immigrated to the United States in the 1980s. She has worked as a nurse in New York for more than 25 years, and has been at NYU since 2010. She currently lives in New Jersey with her husband and two children, both of whom are in college.
While Menchu’s place of work was being flooded, her home in Secaucus was suffering the same fate when the tidal surge from Mill Creek inundated Gail Place. Like many on their block and surrounding streets, the Sanchezes lost many possessions, cars, and living space to the quick surge of water. They were without heat for one month and the contractor they hired did a poor and incomplete job which had to be redone by another contractor. The work is still not finished. Menchu’s husband, who drives her back and forth to work, did not let on just how bad things were in their own home when the two talked that hurricane day. “He didn’t want me to worry,” Menchu said. He told her to concentrate on saving the babies’ lives and that their possessions were just material things that could be replaced.
A visibly upset Menchu related how they used a Secaucus contractor to fix their home because they wanted to give a local company their business, and how shaken she was at how they were “taken” by this local contractor. The Sanchezes have flood insurance, but she noted how long the process has taken, and that they have not received any money yet. To make matters worse, they had to pay the first contractor for his poor performance and will now have to pay another one to do it all over again. Financial uncertainty was very much on her mind. Thankfully, the costs of the two-day trip to Washington she and her husband took will be reimbursed by the government.
Our Secaucus heroine was very impressed by President Obama’s address and feels he is a champion of the Middle Class. Menchu said his policies regarding mortgages directly affected her and her husband when they were able to have their mortgage modified, making it easier for them to remain in their home. She also agrees with the President on gun control and other policies, but is especially happy that he is trying to assist the Middle Class. She related that in the photo session at the White House, when her name was called and she went up to meet the President, he joyfully said her name—“MENCHU SANCHEZ!”—hugged her and thanked her for her humanitarian actions. She also met Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, at the Capital, and told him that her children were passionate Mac fans, and also met New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney in whose district Langone Medical Center is located. Maloney is also an ardent gun control advocate whose husband was killed and son severely injured years ago in an incident involving a firearm.
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