WASHINGTON (USTCNS) --- Navy hospital ship to load in Naval Weapons Station Earle, N.J.

Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort is headed to New York City to provide disaster relief to victims of the recent terrorist attack. Comfort will arrive at Naval Weapons Station Earle, N.J., Friday, Sept. 14, to load supplies and additional personnel.

The 894-foot ship got underway from Baltimore, Md., Sept. 12 at the direction of Navy's Commander-in-Chief Atlantic Fleet following the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

The ship is expected to arrive in New York City Fri., Sept. 14, to be available to provide medical and surgical assistance to the victims of the disaster.

USNS Comfort, ordinarily kept pierside in Baltimore in reduced operating status, will arrive at Pier 92 in Manhattan with a crew of 61 civilian mariners and about 600 medical and non-medical support personnel.

The Medical Treatment Facility on board ship will be staffed by a team of doctors, nurses, corpsman and other specialists who are active duty Navy personnel mostly from the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

While in Earle, approximately 320 medical and non-medical personnel will embark to support the Medical Treatment Facility. In addition, more than 400 pallets of medical and surgical supplies, food and pharmaceuticals will be loaded aboard ship.

Comfort, one of two Navy hospital ships, is equal in size to one of the nation's largest trauma centers. The ship is designed to provide emergency, on-site care for U.S. combatant forces deployed in war or other operations.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, via Department of Defense, requested that USNS Comfort provide four operating rooms and 250 hospital beds to assist in the disaster relief effort. This represents only a fraction of the capability that Comfort's unique Medical Treatment Facility provides.

The ship is fully equipped with 12 operating rooms, 1,000 hospital beds, a medical laboratory, an optometry lab, radiological services, a CAT scan, a pharmacy and two oxygen producing plants. In addition, Comfort has 80 intensive care beds, 20 recovery beds, 400 intermediate care beds, 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.

Comfort joined the Navy fleet in 1987 and has actively participated in events around the world. It served in the Persian Gulf War, assisted with the Haitian migrant operations in the Caribbean in 1994, and has participated in multi-national exercises.

Usually Comfort is kept in reduced operating status with a crew of 13 civilian mariners and 58 Navy personnel. When the ship is activated, additional civilian mariners are assigned to the ship.

USNS Comfort is operated by the Navy's Military Sealift Command, the ocean transportation provider for the Department of Defense. The command operates approximately 115 active ships around the world. Ship missions vary from the transport and afloat prepositioning of defense cargo; to underway replenishment and other direct support to Navy ships at sea; to at-sea data collection for the U.S. military and other U.S. government agencies.

USNS stands for United States Naval Ship and is the designator used for the U.S. Navy's noncombatant ships. All USNS ships are operated by civilian mariners employed by the Department of the Navy or by private operating companies under contract to Military Sealift Command.

(FROM MILITARY SEALIFT COMMAND PUBLIC AFFAIRS)