Woman gives birth in the dark after hospital loses power

A Los Angeles-area mom and newborn baby are recovering after a dramatic childbirth experience amid Tropical Storm Hilary.

The new mom, who has not been publicly identified, gave birth to her baby in the dark after three emergency generators went out overnight Tuesday at Adventist Health White Memorial, a six-story hospital in Los Angeles.

The hospital originally lost power around 3 a.m. local time Monday, during "the height" of Tropical Storm Hilary, John Raffoul, president of Adventist Health White Memorial President, said at a news conference Tuesday morning.

Less than 24 hours later, around 1 a.m. local time Tuesday, the hospital's emergency generators failed, causing the entire hospital, which includes OB-GYN care and a neonatal intensive care unit, to go dark, according to Raffoul.

Grace Hauser, a spokesperson for the hospital, said Tuesday that nurses and doctors used flashlights to provide some light while the mother gave birth.

"What they ended up doing was putting together a whole bunch of flashlights and shining them up at the ceiling and illuminating the room, so there was plenty of light," Hauser said, adding that following delivery, the mom and baby were transferred to another hospital.

In total, there were 241 patients being treated at the hospital at the time of the outage, Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said Tuesday.

Nearly 30 patients had to be evacuated from the hospital during the power outage and transported to nearby hospitals. The patients transported were deemed "critical," according to Crowley.

She noted that responding firefighters and paramedics had to transport the critical patients out of the six-story building without the use of elevators, which were not working due to the power outage.

"I'm very very proud of our LAFD members with the coordination of what they were able to handle in a very short amount of time," she said, noting that over 100 LAFD personnel responded to the incident.

Hilary, the first tropical storm to move into Southern California since 1997, marked the first time that tropical storm watches were issued in the region. Sunday set a new record for the wettest August day ever in Palm Springs, San Diego and downtown Los Angeles.

Hilary's highest rain total was in Upper Mission Creek in San Bernardino County, where 13 inches of rainfall was recorded.

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No deaths or major injuries were reported in Los Angeles from Hilary, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said at a news conference Monday.

Raffoul, the hospital executive, said the hospital's generators were installed in 2008, at the same time the facility was built.

He said the hospital has "regular maintenance and testing" on the generators on an "ongoing basis," but did not know when that testing had most recently occurred.

Raffoul also said the hospital is currently investigating what caused the backup generators to fail.

"I don't know if it was a result of Hilary, is it a result of the [power] outage in the community, is it a result of the outage here at the hospital?" Raffoul said. "Like I said, we have some investigation to do."

ABC News' Jenna Harrison and Vanessa Navarrete contributed to this report.