A moveable causeway is a mobile bridge. In other words, where a land route is needed into an area, a temporary one can be set up, capable of handling quite heavy vehicle traffic, assuming that the causeway can be brought to that spot.

Jeff: Yes, I'm sure you are right. What I'm not sure about is exactly what sort of "moveable causeway" this is and if it's something special for this operation.

The significance of the mobile causeway is that New Orleans has lost two bridges. One of the challenges of getting help into the city is getting into the city.

Apparently a sizable remnant of New Orleans citizens are refusing to be evacuated. That stubbornness will add greatly to the problems and expense of the relief operation.

Other than that, the response of the National Guard and active duty military has been dramatic. The contrast between military competence and Louisiana incompetence is incredible.

I think they should add another 10 billion in the Federal relief package and build more refineries here in America. After all the whole nation is feeling the gas prices go up as a result of Katrina. The President should have been quicker to act as well as the rest of our always fast acting and honest Governments around the world lol. I remember when gas was 89 cents a gallon and for 10 bucks you could get almost 11 gallons I put 10 bucks into today and got 3 gallons. I am only 27 years old so I am not talking about 1960, 70, or even 80 1990 just almost 8 9 years ago. But I guess navy ships are a start!!

Jerry, it's not the lack of money to build them that prevents more refineries from being built. It's environmental regulations and the five most important letters in American politics: NIMBY (Not In My Backyard). It would probably be more practical to make better use of our current refinery capacity by standardizing and reducing the number of gasoline formulations.

We'd probably better drop this subject for fear of threadjacking.

Good informative post...I did something similar in highlighting some of the aerial evacuations. Look foward to some of your insights in the future.

Regards,

MH

Thanks for the info! The Northern Command website has been down for over a day now, which doesn't speak well for somebody.

Back to the moveable causeway for a moment:
I'm guessing that its a standard sort of amphibious bridge. LSDs carry a bunch of small craft & crews that do multiple tasks, of which bridging is one. The LCACs are air-cushioned, so they can go through flooded areas without worrying about running aground, etc.

A lot of supply ships, I note. Would you know if any port facilities are open enough for them to dock, or will they be offloading via helo?

Scratch that: The LCACS would probably not go through the city itself, but beach, IIRC. Interesting ship to send...

Game wardens are being requested to take their amphibious boats down to help out in NO, from the surrounding state parks and waterways. Several, I understand, are footing the gasoline and transportation costs themselves.

I remember when gas was 89 cents a gallon and for 10 bucks you could get almost 11 gallons I put 10 bucks into today and got 3 gallons

Ah, that was a fool's dream my friend, the result of severe economic recession in Asia 'round 1997-98. I recall gas hitting 60c in Arkansas!

Heck, I can remember when (ca. 1970) gas was 36 cents. I drove a VW bug that got 36 mpg, so travel was a penny a mile.

Having been stationed aboard the Comfort's sister ship USNS Mercy(T-AH 19), I wanted to note a small mistake in your Comfort stats. She is a 1000 bed hospital ship with 12 operating rooms and the capability to manufacture freshwater and their own oxygen. She can also support up to and including CH-53 Helos.

Ryland: News reports indicated that "initially" the Comfort would have 250 beds available. I don't know if this means the ship will only be partially staffed or what. Also, "initially" seems to indicate that they're prepared to expand the number of beds if circunstances warrant.

Thanks for the comment and I'll try to keep an eye out for more info on the total.

The phib's are great for this, since they have the space for supporting people and carry small craft designed to be run aground.

I saw that, sorry. When they stop in Mayport, the additional staffing will put them at 500 bed level.

To add to the list of Navy contributions...

There's a Seabees unit that was already based in Gulfport, Mississippi when Katrina hit. They got flattened, but they're still in operation, deeply involved with cleanup and refugee relief. A minister of my faith (New Christian) is their chaplain down there, and he's been coordinating efforts between FEMA, the Navy, the Salvation Army, and a new faith-based relief organization called Charity In Action.

He's got a portfolio of shelters down there that all have plenty of refugees but NOTHING in the way of supplies. He has secure warehouse space and our first truck is rolling out of Pennsylvania tomorrow morning, along with a team of volunteer workers who will be doing light construction duty under harsh conditions for a week. More trucks and volunteers are on the way in coming days.

I've blogged this (with more details) over at GlennFrazier.com .

I hoope it's true, I've heard a few news reports that Carnival cruise lines had loaned 3 ships to house the hurricane victims. I might have to reconsider my distaste for cruises. That's nice.

Causeway info here. Used in "Joint Logistics Over the Shore" operations.

There are a lot of highly capable ships out there...

The news story on the Bataan is making me seethe with rage. There is no way on earth anyone can make the case that FEMA is doing its job.

I'm not blaming Bush -- the local and state authorities made king size fubars too -- but there's no way the feds get a pass when they tell a relief effort to turn back.

Some JLOTS info here.

Not sure where the causeways might be used, as I think the idea is to see if the piers in Biloxi and some of the other ports might be usable. See this post.

Swift has been offloading at Pensacola. Its high speed is an asset, but it does draw 12 feet.

Okay, one more causeway JLOTS note - Swift has been used with causeway sections, its own Roll-on/Roll-off (RoRo) capability and larger RoRo ships to move equipment rapidly to shore...see this Military Sealift Command site.

Great catch, EagleSpeak! I updated the post. Thanks!

To add to what Mac said in #18, the Seabees have 3 battalions in Gulfport (1, 7 and 133) and are moving 2 additional battalions (4 and 40) plus detachments from CBMU 202 and 303 and reserve Seabees. The press release estimates 3000 total.

For info on what the Seabees are doing, see the www.navfac.navy.mil homepage. Here is a direct link to news releases: https://portal.navfac.navy.mil/portal/page?_pageid=181,3465053&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

I hope this works, it is very long.

USS Swift (HSV-2) is making logistics runs for ships in theater. Fuel, food, etc.

12 feet is still about half of what any other amphib requires. Most CO's don't like to go any closer than 30' and that's in well charted waters, there are probably lots of new uncharted hazards out there that will make CO's wet their pants.

(hitting something with your ship = career over)

Nicest thing about the HSV ships is they use jets similar to jet skis and are super maneuverable - no tugs required. I watched one spin in place (like a tank) at the naval base in Kuwait so that it could tie up bow pointing out to sea.

There are a handful of military systems that are almost tailor made for relief operations. One is the C-130 aircraft. All the rest are amphibs.

There's a startling omission in this list -- I didn't see Sean Penn's rowboat anywhere.

Robin -

The C-130's a great aircraft, and has been used in humanitarian missions darn near since the first one rolled off the assembly line. They don't land on water well, though, (well, at least not more than once per plane(grin)) and need about 3000 feet of runway for safety. Now that the NO airport's open, there's a place to land other cargo lifters with greater capacity.

J.

Very good, this is the first list of all the ships involved that I have seen.

One suggestion though, how about posting a quick link to the ship/system's home page, or a page with information on the ship/system's general characteristics? Globalsecurity.org is the homepage to a good site for this type of info, as are and all the assoicated service websites.

Just a thought.

JLawson, don't tell me you haven't seen the video of the C-130 on a carrier yet? ( grin )

A link to C-130 carrier tests, just so no one thinks I am telling sea stories.

Shout out to the boys from ACU-2 down there doing our thing, and all my shipmates from ACU-1 who voulenteered to go.

And LCU has a deep draft of 8 feet... an LCAC dosn't have a 'draft' per-se... and an LCM has about 6' when its super-heavy... I know cause I work with all three. So it's very plausable that you'll see these boats in plenty of tight spots... and we're the tanks of the sea, we're made to run a-ground (beach) hard so underwater obsticles prolly wont be a reall big issue.