Hospital Ship

The USNS Comfort, the white-hulled hospital ship that has been a fixture of the Baltimore waterfront for a quarter-century, is moving next year to Norfolk, Va., the Navy announced Tuesday. Maryland officials had fought the move of the ship, whose missions have included supporting service members in Iraq and helping earthquake victims in Haiti. Former Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, who helped to bring the ship to Baltimore in the 1980s and worked with the current congressional delegation to keep it, called the decision a symbolic and an economic blow to the region.

An article in the April 20, 1912, edition of The Argus reported a Catonsville resident's cause for concern on board a sister ship to the doomed RMS Titanic. While not on the doomed ship Titanic, a Catonsvilleian on the Olympic went through much of the excitement. He is William G. Scarlett of Bloomsbury avenue, who went abroad for a rest. A short time ago, three members of his family were ill with typhoid, and Mr. Scarlett felt the need of change and recreation.

The Navy is considering moving the hospital ship USNS Comfort from its home in the port of Baltimore to Norfolk, Va., when its current berthing agreement expires in 2013, officials said Tuesday. Maryland's representatives in Washington are trying to block such a move. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski is seeking federal funding to study the impact that moving the ship would have on its wartime and humanitarian missions. Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger introduced legislation Tuesday that would require the Navy to conduct a cost-benefit analysis before making a decision.

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski on Wednesday likened the loss of the USNS Comfort to the departure of the Baltimore Colts - and asked Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to reconsider. The U.S. Fleet Forces Command announced last month that it was moving the white-hulled hospital ship, a fixture of the Baltimore waterfront for a quarter century, to Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia. “We love the Comfort,” Mikulski, chairing a subcommittee hearing Wednesday morning on the Navy's 2013 budget request, told Mabus.

T he faces of the Haitian disaster arrived Wednesday aboard the Navy hospital ship Comfort as a procession of earthquake victims, looking lost and scared, staggered off helicopters or strained to look up from their stretchers while corpsmen carried them below deck. There was a 20-year-old man with a shattered right leg wincing; a 47-year-old woman with her arm in a splint crying; a school bus driver, burned from the tips of his fingers to the top of his head, smiling. They came from clinics and triage centers across Haiti, beginning just after sunrise and ending at dusk, shattering the ship's military and clinical sterility with the cries and smells and blank stares of human anguish.

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski on Wednesday likened the loss of the USNS Comfort to the departure of the Baltimore Colts - and asked Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to reconsider. The U.S. Fleet Forces Command announced last month that it was moving the white-hulled hospital ship, a fixture of the Baltimore waterfront for a quarter century, to Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia. “We love the Comfort,” Mikulski, chairing a subcommittee hearing Wednesday morning on the Navy's 2013 budget request, told Mabus.

An article in yesterday's editions incorrectly reported the patient capacity of the hospital USNS Comfort, which is being deployed to the Caribbean in June. The ship has 1,000 beds.The Sun regrets the error.The Baltimore-based hospital ship USNS Comfort will be sent to the Caribbean early next month for possible use as a processing center for fleeing Haitian boat people, the Military Sealift Command (MSC) said yesterday.The Comfort -- last activated for military duty during the Persian Gulf war -- is undergoing routine maintenance at Newport News, Va., and "will report to the U.S. Atlantic Command for duty in the Caribbean in early June," according to the MSC, a civilian agency which operates the 250-bed hospital ship.

The M/V Sanctuary, a former Navy hospital ship left to rot at the port of Baltimore, was auctioned off yesterday for $50,000. A lawyer for the would-be owner refused to identify his client and couldn't say what will be done with the 522-foot-long, eight-story-high ship, promising more details if a judge agrees to accept the bid. The ship was seized by federal marshals in March and auctioned by the U.S. District Court to repay debt racked up by the...

The United Way of Central Maryland voted yesterday to give a $35,000 grant to the former hospital ship Sanctuary, a decommissioned Navy vessel that may be resurrected as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center.The 562-foot Sanctuary, which saw extensive duty during the Vietnam War, is owned by Project Life. The local nonprofit organization hopes to have a 100-bed detoxification unit on board by June of next year.

The 1,000-bed Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort and crew returned home yesterday at Canton Pier, six weeks after leaving for a joint medical training exercise in the Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The crew treated nearly 700 patients from Baltic nations during the trip, and, while in England, was paid a visit by Princess Anne. Nearly 600 medical personnel assigned to the ship for the exercise will return to their regular jobs at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, while the 894-foot-long Comfort returns to reduced operating status at the pier.

Apparently my good friend, Fred Rasmussen , who wrote an interesting piece about passenger ship founderings over the past century ("Some show bravery, others cowardice," Feb. 26) was not aware of one of the most outstanding rescues in history. Coincidentally, the master in charge was a ship captain from Baltimore. The rescue has been recorded on a painting entitled "And Every Soul Was Saved. " An engraving of that painting is included as the frontispiece of a book on America's merchant marine, printed in Baltimore in 1915, with the description reading as follows: "The engraving opposite, taken from a famous painting by Thomas M. Hemy, commemorates one of the most graphic rescues at sea ever recorded in the history of maritime events.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for clouds then sun, with a high near 54 degrees. It is expected to be cloudy tonight with a slight chance of rain after 1 a.m., and a low temperature around 36 degrees. TRAFFIC Check our updates for this morning's issues as you plan your commute. FROM LAST NIGHT... City proposes one school closure, scaling back grade levels at three others : Baltimore school officials proposed Tuesday night to close one school, Southside Academy, a Cherry Hill high school with about 274 students.

It was Happy Hour at the Poncabird Pub on Wednesday, and the South Baltimore tavern was as busy and bustling as usual, but as late-afternoon sunlight streaked through a side window, the expressions it caught on the faces at one table were decidedly grim. "This [stinks]," said Dane Sobus, a regular customer who has spent many evenings drinking with crew members and workers from the USNS Comfort, the hospital ship the Navy announced this week will be moving to Norfolk, Va., after a quarter-century in the port of Baltimore.

Gov. Martin O'Malley says Maryland will have a tough time persuading the Navy to keep the USNS Comfort docked in Baltimore, but he expects forthcoming commerce to bolster the waterfront's vibrancy. O'Malley said Wednesday he will work with the state's congressional delegation, specifically Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, to try to keep the hospital ship here. But the reality, he said, is the Navy can save about $2 million a year by keeping the humanitarian vessel and floating emergency hospital at a military pier in Norfolk, Va. "The hard economics of the matter is that the ship was docked at a private berth and paying $2 million when they could pay nothing by going to available naval facilities in Norfolk, and so it's a tough economic argument to make," the two-term Democratic governor said.

The USNS Comfort, the white-hulled hospital ship that has been a fixture of the Baltimore waterfront for a quarter-century, is moving next year to Norfolk, Va., the Navy announced Tuesday. Maryland officials had fought the move of the ship, whose missions have included supporting service members in Iraq and helping earthquake victims in Haiti. Former Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, who helped to bring the ship to Baltimore in the 1980s and worked with the current congressional delegation to keep it, called the decision a symbolic and an economic blow to the region.

The former Navy hospital ship USS Sanctuary, which served in the aftermath of World War II and in Vietnam, has been sold and is now under tow from Baltimore to Brownsville, Texas, for recycling. The move marks the end of a 22-year residence in Baltimore Harbor that was troubled by deterioration, failed business ventures and lawsuits. The Sanctuary left the harbor Wednesday. Two suits are still pending. But the 529-foot ship's former owner — Potomac Navigation, Inc. — is in settlement talks with the U.S. Maritime Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The U.S. Navy hospital ship the USNS Comfort, deployed in the Persian Gulf for nine months, is scheduled to return to Baltimore on Monday.Families and friends will be reunited with crew members during a celebration at the Dundalk Marine Terminal at 1 p.m.The Comfort was activated for duty in the Middle East on Aug. 8, soon after President Bush deployed American troops to Saudi Arabia in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.The crew now numbers 460 members. At the height of the conflict, there were 1,100 crew members, including medical personnel from the National Naval Medical Center and other East Coast medical facilities.

Navy Chaplain Thomas E. Webb leaned over the rail on the flight deck of the USNS Comfort yesterday, scanning the ebullient crowd below. He saw the giant yellow bow tacked to the side of the Dundalk Marine Terminal and the bobbing brass tubas of the marching band. He saw the welcome home sign for "Tonya" and the cluster of red, white and blue balloons for "Jeff."Then in the midst of the crowd, he spotted them: his wife, Kathy, and daughter Emily waving tiny U.S. flags. That's when the Protestant minister started to tremble.

Helen R. Walsh, a registered nurse who helped her physician husband establish Project HOPE in the 1950s, which brought health care to developing countries and offered disaster relief, died Thursday from congestive heart failure at her Bethesda home. She was 89. "Helen and Bill Walsh were larger-than-life figures who convinced President [Dwight] Eisenhower to give Project HOPE a ship that became an icon of America's humanity," Dr. John Howe, Project HOPE's current president and CEO, said Tuesday.