We hope everyone got through Monday’s storm safely. If you’ve been following the news, you know that Lower Manhattan was hit hard by Sandy. MoRUS did not escape unscathed — the museum’s basement was completely flooded after the storm.

MoRUS volunteers have been working nonstop to clean up the space. If you’re able to, please come by and lend a hand! We need all the help we can get.

Despite this tremendous obstacle, along with environmental group Time’s Up! we’ve been doing our best to serve the community by providing a bike generator from Occupy Wall Street that makes up one of our exhibits. The bike generator–among other exhibit items–was rescued by museum co-director Bill DiPaola and members of C-Squat during the storm, and now it’s being put to very good use, providing the community with a free cell phone charging station. C-Squat also set up a street-side barbecue and has been providing free food.

MoRUS was originally slated to open on November 17, but we’ll be assessing Sandy’s damage to determine whether that date needs to be pushed back. Edit: We’ve decided to push back the grand opening date to Saturday, December 8. More details here.

MoRUS and Times Up! will continue running the bikes and providing free cell phone charging tomorrow, and C-Squat plans to continue providing free food (and likely to continue doing so until electricity is restored). As always, we’d like to highlight the East Village community — we’re all getting through this crisis together, and there are sure to be better times ahead!

Update: This community effort has received a lot of press, from NBC News to the Wall Street Journal. We also posted photos from the storm and its aftermath here.