[Katrina] Navy ship nearby underused
- From: indigoace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Indigo Ace)
- Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2005 17:02:41 GMT
>From the Chicago Tribune--
Navy ship nearby underused
Craft with food, water, doctors needed orders
By Stephen J. Hedges
Tribune national correspondent
Published September 4, 2005
ON THE USS BATAAN -- While federal and state emergency planners
scramble to get more military relief to Gulf Coast communities
stricken by Hurricane Katrina, a massive naval goodwill station has
been cruising offshore, underused and waiting for a larger role in the
effort.
The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch Marines in
amphibious assaults, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and
water. It also can make its own water, up to 100,000 gallons a day.
And it just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came
roaring ashore.
The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore,
awaiting relief orders. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were
some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents.
But now the Bataan's hospital facilities, including six operating
rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty. A good share of its 1,200
sailors could also go ashore to help with the relief effort, but they
haven't been asked. The Bataan has been in the stricken region the
longest of any military unit, but federal authorities have yet to
fully utilize the ship.
Captain ready, waiting
"Could we do more?" said Capt. Nora Tyson, commander of the Bataan.
"Sure. I've got sailors who could be on the beach plucking through
garbage or distributing water and food and stuff. But I can't force
myself on people.
"We're doing everything we can to contribute right now, and we're
ready. If someone says you need to take on people, we're ready. If
they say hospitals on the beach can't handle it ... if they need to
send the overflow out here, we're ready. We've got lots of room."
Navy helicopters from the Bataan and Pensacola Naval Air Station in
Florida have joined the growing aerial armada of choppers that are
lifting hurricane survivors from flooded surroundings and delivering
food and water.
More will arrive throughout the weekend when the aircraft carrier USS
Harry S. Truman and four other Navy ships, including three amphibious
assault ships--really mini-aircraft carriers for helicopter
use--arrive in the gulf from Norfolk, Va. The USS Comfort, a hospital
ship from Baltimore, also is steaming there.
The Bataan, though, was already in the gulf when Katrina crossed
Florida and picked up new, devastating energy from the warm gulf
waters. The ship, sailing near the Texas coastline, had just finished
an exercise in Panama and was scheduled to return to its home port in
Norfolk on Friday after six weeks at sea.
Instead, the ship rode out the hurricane in 12 to 14 foot seas and
then fell in behind the storm as it neared the gulf coast. A day after
Katrina struck, Navy helicopters arrived from Corpus Christi, Texas,
and began survey flights over New Orleans.
The initial belief, Tyson said, was that the city had been spared.
"On Monday it was like, `Wow, it missed us, it took a turn east,' and
everything eased up," Tyson aid. "It was `Let's open up Bourbon
Street, have a beer, let's go party, and understandably so. And then
all of a sudden, literally and figuratively, the dam broke, and here
we are."
When the city's levees broke Tuesday, Tyson's pilots were rescuing
stranded residents. Communications became muddled as the rescue and
humanitarian supply efforts were bogged down by rising water and
sketchy information. Tyson, who would get debriefings from returning
pilots, had perhaps one of the best vantage points to see what was
unfolding.
`Like a bad dream'
"It was like a bad dream that you knew you had to wake up from," she
said.
A 135-foot landing craft stored within the Bataan, the LCU-1656, was
dispatched to steam up the 90 miles of Mississippi River to New
Orleans. It took a crew of 16, including a doctor, and its deck was
stacked with food and water. The craft carries enough food and fuel to
remain self-sufficient for 10 days.
Moving up through the storm's flotsam, the crew couldn't believe the
scene.
"We saw a lot of dead animals, dead horses, floating cows, dead
alligators," said Rodney Blackshear, LCU-1656's navigator. "And a lot
of dogs that had been pets. But no people."
Near Boothville, La., the storm surge had lifted a construction crane
and put it on top of a house. Near Venice, the crew members considered
going ashore to examine the damage, but dogs drove them back.
"I didn't want any of my guys in there," said Bill Fish, who commands
LCUs and who went on the river trip.
"Everything was decimated. It was the storm surge."
Then the Bataan was ordered to move to the waters off Biloxi, Miss.,
and LCU-1656 was ordered to return. The landing craft was 40 miles
from New Orleans, but it wouldn't be able to deliver its cargo.
"It was a disappointment," Fish said. "I figured we would be a big
help in New Orleans. We've got electricity, and the police could have
charged up their radios. We've got water, toilets. We've got food."
Now sailing within 25 miles of Gulfport, Miss., the Bataan has become
a floating warehouse. Supplies from Texas and Florida are ferried out
to the ship, and the helicopters distribute them where Federal
Emergency Management Agency personnel say they are needed.
The Bataan has also taken on a substantial medical staff. Helicopters
ferried 84 doctors, nurses and technicians 60 miles out to the ship
from the Pensacola Naval Air Station on Friday, and on Saturday
afternoon 24 of the medical personnel were flown to the New Orleans
Convention Center where they expected to augment the staff of an Air
Force medical clinic on the center's bus parking lot. The medical
staff had come from Jacksonville, Fla., Naval Hospital, and they
covered a wide swath of medical specialties from surgeons and
pediatricians to heart specialists, a psychiatrist and even a physical
therapist.
"It's really a cross section of a major hospital," said Capt. Kevin
Gallagher, a Navy nurse who was part of the group. "We haven't been
told what to expect, but we're going to find out once we get out
there."
Moving in, ready to go
On Friday evening the Bataan was edging closer to the Mississippi
shoreline; until then, it had stayed well out into the gulf to avoid
floating debris.
Closer to shore, it will be able to deploy the landing craft again, as
well as Marine hovercraft that can ride up onto shore to deliver
supplies.
LCU-1656 cruised 98 miles overnight Thursday with a failed electrical
generator and broken starboard propeller to join up again with the
Bataan, their mother ship. After repairs, it was to set out for the
shoreline near Gulfport, Miss., Saturday with a 15,000 water tank
lashed to vessel's deck, as well as pallets of bottled water.
The role in the relief effort of the sizable medical staff on board
the Bataan was not up to the Navy, but to FEMA officials directing the
overall effort.
That agency has been criticized sharply for failing to respond quickly
enough.
Tyson said the hurricane was an unusual event that has left some
painful lessons.
"Can you do things better? Always," Tyson said. "Unfortunately, some
of the lessons we have learned during this catastrophe we are learning
the hard way. But I think we're working together well to make things
happen."
----------
Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509040369sep04,1,4144825.story?coll=chi-news-hed
--
Anne
indigoace at goodsol period com
http://www.goodsol.com/cats/
.
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