USNS Comfort: Slow boat to New Orleans

[expatriot]

On August 31st, the White House stated that:

The Department Of Defense Is Moving Military Resources Into The Gulf States To Aid In Rescue And Recovery. Eight Navy ships have moved into the area with water, food, medicine, hospital facilities, berthing, and more. DOD has responded to all FEMA requests and is providing logistical help, including helicopters, activation of air stations in strategic areas, and strategic lift support

Here is the saga of one of those eight boats that both "are moving" and "have moved" into the region...
August 31, 2005
Navy Hospital Ship Comfort to Head for New Orleans

The U.S.N.S. Comfort, one of two hospital ships in the Navy, was preparing today to sail from here at top speed for the Gulf Coast to provide medical services and disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina

September 3, 2005
Comfort Departs to Aid Katrina Refugees

USNS COMFORT, At Sea (NNS) -- Hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) set sail for the Hurricane Katrina-affected region of the Gulf of Mexico Sept. 2 in support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s effort to provide medical support and humanitarian aid for victims of the recent natural disaster.

Comfort and its more than 500-person crew is initially slated to function at a 250-bed capacity. In addition to the 59 active-duty Sailors and 63 civil service mariners who make up the reduced operating staff (ROS) aboard the ship, the crew has been augmented with Sailors from the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and Naval Medical Clinic, Annapolis, Md., as well as several other Navy military treatment facilities.

It will take the 894-foot ship about five days to reach the U.S. Gulf Coast region, with a stop in Mayport, Fla.

September 6, 2005

Comfort upgrades to 250 beds, but mission is still unclear

ABOARD THE USNS COMFORT — Making a 12-hour stop in Mayport, Fla., on Monday, the hospital ship Comfort took on the final crew members, medical supplies and stores needed to run a 250-bed hospital — but its mission upon reaching the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast by Thursday or Friday of this week was still undecided.

[napi21]

1. I've been wondering that for the last few days. Almost ALL the

seriously ill have been moved to hospitals elsewhere! What are they going to do with a hospital ship on Friday???

[expatriot]

2. I saw in an article where it left port for NYC on September 12, 2001. nt

[MindPilot]

3. If there is a serious outbreak of disease

a ship can be quarantined. It can also serve as a medical facility for the cleanup workers.

And having more medical services available has to be a good thing.

[The Stranger]

4. This is intentional: forcing local/state governments and private charities

to bear the burden while removing the federal government from its proper role and its main purpose.

File this next to privatizing social security and opening up the people's wilderness and environment to be destroyed by private interests.

[DELUSIONAL]

5. 200 beds = 200 patients

Al Gore AIRLIFTED that many patients OUT of New Orleans.

So for the assholes who voted for bushie -- DO YOU FEEL SAFER NOW?

[Turbineguy]

6. More info:

HOSPITAL SHIP USNS COMFORT SAILS TO SUPPORT KATRINA VICTIMS
The US Navy's Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS COMFORT, crewed by MM&P Licensed Deck Officers, was activated on Wednesday, Aug. 31, to provide medical support in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Based in Baltimore, COMFORT is one of the largest trauma facilities in the US. The ship is being readied quickly for her mission in support of FEMA and could be underway as soon as Saturday.

Ordinarily, COMFORT is kept at Baltimore's Canton Pier in Reduced Operating Status (ROS) with a cadre crew of 18 civil service mariners who maintain the vessel, as well as a hospital support staff of 58 military personnel who care for the ship's hospital facilities, equipment and supplies.

When called to action, the ship's ROS status requires that the COMFORT be crewed, mission ready and able to sail in five days. As the Wheelhouse Weekly is being readied for distribution, additional crewmembers and medical personnel are arriving on board; specific medical supplies are being procured and ship systems are being readied to expedite the ship's departure from Baltimore.

It will take the COMFORT about seven days to reach the Gulf Coast region. The ship will stop in Mayport, FL, en route to the Gulf Coast to load additional medical supplies and hospital personnel, mostly from the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. The ship will get underway with about 270 military personnel who operate the ship's onboard Medical Treatment Facility and a crew of 63 civil service mariners from Military Sealift Command who operate the vessel. The COMFORT will be initially staffed to support 250 patient beds.

At 894-feet, COMFORT is equal in size to one of the nation's five largest trauma centers. COMFORT is a unique medical treatment facility with up to 1,000 beds, fully equipped with 12 operating rooms, medical laboratory, optometry lab, radiological services, cat scan, pharmacy and two oxygen producing plants.

In addition, COMFORT has 80 intensive care beds, 20 recovery beds, 400 intermediate care beds and 500 minimal care beds and a helicopter deck capable of landing large military helicopters, as well as side ports to take on patients at sea. The vessel was originally a San Clemente-class tanker that was transformed into a hospital ship in 1987.

COMFORT was last called to duty for Operation Iraqi Freedom. In January 2003, the ship sailed from Baltimore to the Persian Gulf to provide medical care to US military personnel, Iraqi civilians and enemy prisoners of war. The ship also activated on Sept. 12, 2001, and spent three weeks in New York City providing support to relief workers in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The above from the MM&P, the Union representing the Deck Officers on the vessel.

The ship is kept with a skeleton crew, engines shut down and a small medical staff. It takes time to start things up as is recognized by the 5 day "breakout" allowance.

The vessel should have gone to standby when the state of emergency was declared (that would have been the 28th). Even when the first serious weather service report came out with it dire predictions, they could have ordered the ship readied. The start-up cost could have always been justified as better safe than sorry.