Per Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Maria
Maria made landfall on PR, at 10:15 am, Sept. 20 It made it back to sea, 6:00 pm, Sept.20
That means there was tropical storm conditions until morning the 21st.
That means real status isn't going to be grasped until the 22nd.
The USNS Comfort Per Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USNS_Comfort_(T-AH-20)
Takes 5 days to activate.
I read somewhere else, but can't find, that it takes 5-9 days to activate it. That 5 is a fast deployment.
That means the earliest possible deployment for the Comfort, is sometime on Sept. 27
Now here is the real issue.
This radar map http://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/855962/Hurricane-Maria-path-map-where-is-now-tracking-maps-models-NOAA-track-Caribbean
Shows that Maria made it up the coast to North Carolina and Virginia and moved of to the east, about midday on Sept. 29.
So, for anybody who hears from a liberal, that Trump was slow in deploying the Comfort. In order to deploy the Comfort any earlier, they either would have been leaving port and going into a hurricane, or logistics would have prevented it.
Just for your possible FYI.
Don’t forget that Jose was churning off the east coast for over a week. They would have had to sail right through that hurricane too.
When the Comfort deployed for Katrina it had to take on 30 tons of supplies in Baltimore, then stop in JAX to take on 300 personeel who had been recalled from other units, plus another 70 tons of supplies
And that was to aid a disaster surrounded by functioning infrastructure
The liberal asshats resent calling 911 in the middle of a hurricane ( 2 hurricanes) and not having a 1000 bed fully staffed , fully supplied floating hospital show up in 2 days
So lets see J-Lo, Ellen Degenerate and Patricia Arquette call on Hillary to do better - like the Clintins did in Haiti
Facts are meaningless to liberals unless they fit their narrative.
People don’t realize that the hospital ships are essentially sitting in a caretaker status until needed.
The problems faced in Puerto Rico are a mix of tough terrain, extensive damage, pre-storm condition, and low resilience. The roads are out, but there is limited space for aircraft. One could take over some large parking lots for heliports, but then you have to provide security for the location and a logistics train to feed the birds. Repairs to electrical systems are complex due to the original condition. Ports are open, but truckers aren’t showing up to drive loads.
Not only is the liberal teamster union in PR refusing to move to relief supplies until they get a better contract with the government, but everybody on the Left wants this disaster to be Trump's Katrina. They are doing this by design.
Puerto Rico was already pounded by a hurricane strike ten weeks previously, so the destruction was already there. But the entire island is a democRAT stronghold that has managed the island like most liberal strongholds in the mainland....not very well.
Besides the island being more than a 1,000 miles away from the mainland, it has been bankrupt and poorly managed for years. Liberals do what liberals do....nothing productive.
So it is not the Trump administration's response to a third major disaster in a row that is not good enough for wild-eyed, utopian liberals, but the local authorities, like the lying mayor of San Juan, are all jumping on the bandwagon to criticize Trump for political reasons, not for ineffective disaster response reasons.
The liberals and their Leftist media water carriers, have decided that this is an opportunity to not let a crisis go to waste. They need a reason to impeach Trump so they can get Hillary in her rightful place, the Oval Office. If she was president now, instead of Trump, her response would probably be, "What difference, at this point, does it make!"
Liberals have absolutely no shame.
the USNS Comfort draws 33 feet, port of San Juan has a max depth of ~35, and it has to be docked for max potential which conditions have not allowed
when did the port open, thursday? and not for all ships and not at night
also as it’s a re purposed tanker it’s difficult to tie up to because it rolls when not docked and only has one pad
the USS Kearsarge has 6(six) OR’s with 513 beds and can ramp up if needed with a real flight deck that can launch and recover 7 helicopters while launching landing craft full of supplies/personnel from it’s well deck
the Kearsarge along with USS Oak Hill were there before the storm hit
but it’s Trump’s fault
USNS Comfort isn’t much of a help early on when you can just fly people to the United States mainland. Also there are hospitals in PR that just need supplies and generators.
If they are sending it now, it is going to be mainly for housing for relief workers and it will be anchored in the port.
USNS Comfort shines in countries outside the range of medical facilities without their own infrastructure. Countries like Yemen, Somalia etc..
All: Mountn Man and others in this thread have posted good info on what it takes to get the USS Comfort ready to sail and that two heliocopter carriers were also on station, each with 6 operating rooms and 7+ copters.