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Hospital Ship Comfort Returns to Baltimore

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS051014-05
Release Date: 10/14/2005 2:01:00 PM

From Military Sealift Command Public Affairs

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- The U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) returned to Baltimore's Canton Pier Oct. 13, following a six-week hurricane relief mission to the U.S. Gulf Coast region.

Comfort was activated Aug. 31 in support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Hurricane Katrina relief efforts and sailed from her Baltimore homeport Sept. 2.

After stopping in Mayport, Fla., to load additional supplies and personnel, Comfort and her augmented crew of more than 600 Sailors, civil service mariners and Project HOPE volunteers, arrived in Pascagoula, Miss, Sept. 9.

In 10 days, Comfort's medical staff treated 1,452 patients aboard the ship and 376 patients ashore at the Comfort Clinic, a temporary medical facility set up at the city's Singing River Mall.

Members of the ship's civil service mariner crew also contributed to relief efforts by repairing a local church badly damaged by the storm. On Sept. 20, the ship left Pascagoula in order to evade Hurricane Rita.

On Sept. 27, Comfort received orders to sail for New Orleans. After a 10-hour transit up the Mississippi River, Comfort arrived in the city Sept. 28.

While in New Orleans, the ship served as an emergency trauma center as the city began to repopulate. During this time, Comfort's medical staff worked alongside local civilian physicians from Louisiana State University aboard the ship in a partnership between the Navy and the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.

"I'm proud of our mariners, Sailors and shore personnel who have helped and are continuing to support relief efforts in the storm-ravaged areas of the Gulf Coast," said Vice Adm. David L. Brewer III, commander, Military Sealift Command. "When our nation called, we were there."

Comfort is one of two hospital ships in the U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command and is normally kept pierside in reduced operating status with a cadre crew of 58 Sailors and 18 civil service mariners aboard. U.S. Navy medical personnel staff the ship's hospital, while mariners employed by Military Sealift Command operate and maintain the ship's navigation and engineering systems.

When called into action, the ship can be ready to sail, crewed with additional personnel and loaded with supplies in five days. For this mission, the ship was ready to sail in three days.