A lower-Manhattan parking garage prevented customers from fleeing Hurricane Sandy when it locked its facility without warning just before the storm made landfall, a Manhattan class-action lawsuit charges.
About 50 cars were held only to be totaled by floodwaters, the suit claims.
“They put people’s lives in jeopardy,” said Carmelo Aviles, 47, who tried to retrieve his Infiniti to evacuate his wheelchair-bound daughter — but found the garage shuttered.
Aviles’ 23-year-old daughter is paralyzed and was stuck in the family’s seventh-story apartment without heat or electricity for five days, he said.
Although attendants at the 24/7 garage, at 227 Cherry St., repeatedly assured customers it would remain open, it closed at 4 p.m. on Oct. 28, papers state.
The suit is seeking unspecified damages.
Michael Wolf, an executive at Standard Parking, said the “hurricane did, of course, have a significant impact on the 227 Cherry St. parking facility.”
He declined to comment on the pending lawsuit.