Cruise terminal in NYC preparing for arrival of USNS Comfort


Cruise terminal in NYC preparing for arrival of USNS Comfort

The city of New York is preparing for the arrival of USNS Comfort, the hospital ship scheduled to come into port Monday. 

New York is ready to welcome a “much needed” hospital ship, Chris Singleton, spokesperson for the New York City Economic Development Corporation, told USA TODAY on Saturday.

On Saturday, while speaking as a part of a send-off for the Comfort in Norfolk, Virginia, President Donald Trump called it “a 70,000-ton message of hope and solidarity.”

To ready the Manhattan Cruise Terminal’s Pier 90, which will become the ship’s temporary home, several city agencies have become involved.

The biggest step? Dredging the slip, or deepening the area in which the ship can come in.

“A number of city agencies, including New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Office of Emergency Management, have been dredging the berth at Manhattan Cruise Terminal’s Pier 90, where the USNS Comfort will dock, to ensure there is sufficient depth in the slip,” Singleton said.

In this Jan. 20, 2010 file photo, the Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort is anchored off the coast of Haiti  to support Operation Unified Response. On Wednesday, March, 18, 2020, President Donald Trump announced he will dispatch the Comfort to the New York City Harbor to provide New York City hospitals with relieve in taking on the COVID-19 virus.

The dredging has been conducted in coordination with the Army Corps of Engineers and will be complete this weekend.

The cruise terminal, which Singleton says receives around 180 ships yearly and often houses Norwegian Cruise Line and Carnival Cruise Line ships, is dredged periodically. So the operation isn’t that irregular, it just requires “a little extra dredging” in preparation for the Comfort.


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