Top US hospital ship will not even DEPART for Puerto Rico until Friday!

[KelleyKramer]

This is unbelievable.

Puerto Rico is in desperate need of aid and all the while Trump cabinet members are bouncing around the country on private jets. And the president himself is twittering away each day complaining about football players


https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/27/1702182/-USS-Comfort-hospital-ship-supposedly-on-the-way-is-set-to-deploy-Friday

USNS Comfort hospital ship, supposedly 'on the way,' is set to deploy Friday


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When it finally dawned on Donald Trump Tuesday that his "tremendous" leadership on the Puerto Rico response was turning into a crisis, the White House quickly deployed the Department of Homeland Security chief and FEMA director Tuesday afternoon to assure Americans everything was under control.

That's when FEMA head Brock Long explained how difficult getting relief to the island was but promised that the federal government was on it. The unique circumstances, he said, are "requiring us to push forward a lot of resources, including the USS Comfort which is on the way."

Or not, writes Steve Sternberg of US News & World Report of the Comfort hospital ship:

The mammoth ship was docked Tuesday in its home port of Norfolk, Virginia, with a minimal crew, requiring up to five days to stock up and get underway. When reached by phone Tuesday afternoon, the commanding officer of the ship's hospital, Capt. Kevin D. Buckley, said, "The Comfort is ready to go, if the call comes."

Now that the orders have arrived, the goal is to stock the ship with personnel, food, water and medical supplies within 96 hours and get underway Friday. "There's a whole slew of equipment that has to be brought on board to accommodate the mission, primarily medical supplies," says the ship's spokesman, Bill Mesta, of the Military Sealift Command, the civilian maritime agency that runs the ship, while the Navy commands its hospital facility.

If you're wondering how this compares to other disaster response mobilizations—not well. Here's a comparison to the urgency with which the ship was dispatched following Haiti's earthquake in 2010.

Haiti's earthquake occurred on January 12, 2010. The next day, the ship was ordered to prepare to depart. Four days later, the Comfort — which had been on shore power for painting and repairs — was fully stocked with food, linens and enough medical gear to supply the ship's 10 operating rooms and set off from Baltimore and passed under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge en route to Haiti.

More at the link...

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/27/1702182/-USS-Comfort-hospital-ship-supposedly-on-the-way-is-set-to-deploy-Friday


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[Lars39]

1. It.Is.Hurricane.Season.

The ship should be fucking loaded and ready to go just in case. And jog my memory...how many days did they know ahead of time it was going to hit PR?!

[LuckyCharms]

2. He done fucked it up good. n/t

[PdxSean]

3. This makes me profoundly sad.

If Trump had his way everyone in Puerto Rico would simply get shoved into the ocean.

[maxrandb]

4. As a Navy veteran, let me tell you

that you can't just get underway. This is Donnie Short Fingers fault, not the Navy.

It takes time to supply, and make sure you have the right quals onboard to get underway. It can take days to do that.

Heck, not so much now with gas turbine and nuclear power ships, but on some of the conventional steam ships I served on, we needed 24-48 hours just to build up enough power to get out of port.

This is all on the orange shitgibbon.

Every available amphibious ship and the USNS Comfort should have been made ready weeks ago

[Hell Hath No Fury]

5. They knew PR --

was going to take a direct hit several days before it happened. History has shown us what a direct hit of that magnitude on that island looks like. At a bare minimum they should have started the process in the days before the strike.

[dalton99a]

11. +1

[obamanut2012]

6. It takes the USNSs Comfort & Mercy approx 72 to be loaded

And ready to sail. The Navy is doing this as fast as they can. It should have been loaded and ready last Thursday, so it could sail as soon as the seas were safe.

This is even worse than Katrina, because technically some people could have walked or ridden a bike into another state.

[KelleyKramer]

10. Exactly, hurricanes have 24-48 hrs notice before hitting, they didn't get the orders to do it!

They should have been already loaded and ready to ship out within a day after the disaster

There were no advance orders to load and ship

Actually there were no orders AFTER it hit

This is a total failure of leadership

Donald Trump is the definition of FUBAR !

[bdamomma]

20. trump is not qualified

to do anything good or respectable for those who are waiting for some kind of help. This situation gets me so upset, Repigs can't govern for shit.

So the supplies are there on the docks and there is no one disperse the supplies???? WTF!!

Trump and his regime should be held for endangering lives.

[IcyPeas]

7. ROYAL CARIBBEAN sent a cruise ship fully loaded...

Generators, etc. And they are taking cancer patients and others back to the U.S. and it's already on the way.

[FloridaBlues]

8. It's not like they didn't see this hurricane coming

Horrible response from FEMA and trump
Hillary was sounding the alarm last week but no one listens. Hope they have plans to get these patients to the ship

[KelleyKramer]

13. Absolutely

This is a perfect example of what happens when you have a president who is dumber than a box of rocks

[Lee-Lee]

9. The Comfort doesn't even have a full crew in port to save money

It takes over 1200 Sailors to operate all the medical facilities on it, plus 60 merchant seamen.

In port the crew is a skeleton crew of around 60 Sailors and a dozen merchant seamen.

It takes time to get all that in place.

Plus in another thread it was pointed out there is only about 2 feet of clearance in the harbor there for the Comfort to make it into port at high tide, and they will have to do a survey and make sure the bottom has not changed and there isn't any debris before it can come ashore and dock.

[maxrandb]

12. I served on the USS KEARSARGE (LHD 3)

Last edited Thu Sep 28, 2017, 07:57 AM - Edit history (1)

We have a total of 8 LHD's, and a bunch of LPD's, LSD's LPH's.

KEARSARGE and the other Amphibs were specifically designed, and we were trained in NEO OPS. That's "Non-Combatant Evacuee Operations"

Each LHD can be turned into a 600-Bed Hospital, with full surgical suites in about 48 hours...and can carry an entire Marine Expeditionary Force.

"Eff" the Aircraft Carriers! There was no more capable ship that I served on than the LHD. The specific mission needed in Puerto Rico is written into the doctrine of the LHD.

Get them the fuck down there!!!!

Edited to add that serving on one of the few ships that actually had a fully functional morgue was a bit unnerving

[B2G]

16. It's already there.

https://www.stripes.com/news/military-conducting-multiple-operations-to-help-hurricane-maria-struck-puerto-rico-virgin-islands-1.489496#.Wc1tGCUpDqA

[maxrandb]

22. Yep, I know KEARSARGE is there

My point is that I know what the LHD's are capable of, and we've got 8 of them. All but those in Maintenance Availabilities or currently deployed should be high-tailing it to Puerto Rico....no...scratch that, they should already be in Puerto Rico.

[Lurker Deluxe]

15. and

Maria was, and still is, on the east coast. To send a vessel like that through a hurricane would be one of the dumbest things anyone could even think of.

It is not a good boat to attempt to power through bad weather, for the minimal impact it would have.

[maxrandb]

23. You've never served in the Navy, have you?

I've gone through storms on a DDG where we would disappear underwater and then bob back to the surface. It's what we do. In fact, we usually sortie our ships to get them "out" of port when a Hurricane is coming. We leave port, because there is less risk of damage at sea than there is tied to a pier when a 15-20 foot storm surge comes through. Where do you think we go?

Additionally, we do actually have the ability to steer around storms and find a course that would result in minimal risk.

We're the "effing" military. We call it "Operational Risk Management", not "Operational Risk Avoidance".

[krispos42]

14. The hurricane hit Puerto Rico on the 20th.

It was forecast to hit the island at least a couple of days beforehand.

Even giving them until the 22nd to see the devastation and order the ship stocked and made ready to weigh anchor, that means it should have left port Tuesday or yesterday, not tomorrow!

[nitpicker]

17. Navy had to be authorized to activate the Comfort

Period.

I'm sure there were drills to identify personnel to staff the Comfort, what military treatment facilities (and other sources) could spare fresh blood, fresh drugs, sterile instruments, etc., checking on contracts that could be used to fill the Comfort with water and perishable goods, and so on. But the Navy couldn't, under standard operating procedures, ACT until FEMA tasked the Navy to activate the Comfort.

And as others have pointed out, first the authorities had to make sure it was safe to sail the Comfort (remember Maria?) and that it was feasible to dock in PR, given the port damage and need for deep enough channels that weren't blocked.

[nitpicker]

18. A bit of dark humor...

In typing Maria, I almost typed it as "Miseria"

[Lurks Often]

19. SHHH! Stop spoiling things with facts!!!!

Facts seem to be in short supply here lately

[bluepen]

21. Facts and logic. A much-needed post in this thread. Thank you