thedrifter
05-02-06, 11:56 AM
May 08, 2006
A vessel born of 2 disasters
Amphib built from WTC steel withstood Katrina at shipyard
By Richard Pyle
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — With a year to go before it touches the water for the first time, the amphibious ship New York has already made history — twice.
Built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center, it weathered Hurricane Katrina, a more violent storm than it may ever encounter at sea.
That combination of disasters gives the ship a unique standing among the 2,000 workers building it in a shipyard near New Orleans, said Philip Teel, vice president of Northrop Grumman Corp., and head of its ship systems division.
“Because of 9/11 and Katrina, there is a real bond about this ship,” Teel said. “There is a huge commonality of spirit of the people in New York and the Gulf Coast, a commitment to pull together when things get difficult.”
The partly completed vessel escaped “significant wind damage” at the shipyard, and many of its workers have continued on the job despite losing homes and possessions to the Aug. 29 storm, Teel said.
“Their dedication and devotion to duty has been, to say the least, epic,” he told a Navy League dinner audience in New York on March 22.
“It sounds trite, but I saw it in their eyes,” Teel said in a separate interview. “These are very patriotic people, and the fact that the ship has steel from the trade center is a source of great pride. They view it as something incredibly special. They’re building it for the nation.”
The New York, scheduled to go into Navy service in 2008, is the fifth in a new, state-of-the-art class of warship — the LPD-17 amphibious transport docks — designed for various missions including special operations against terrorist threats.
It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-equipped Marines to be delivered ashore by a combination of helicopters and surface assault craft.
When terrorist hijackers crashed two jetliners into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, destroying the twin towers and killing nearly 2,800 people, the $700 million ship was already on the drawing board but had not been assigned a name.
Months later, Gov. George Pataki, R-N.Y., asked then-Navy Secretary Gordon England to commemorate the disaster by reviving the name New York for a ship whose role would include fighting terrorism.
England, who since has been named deputy secretary of defense, announced the decision in September 2002, saying the new New York would “project American power to the far corners of the earth and support the cause of freedom well into the 21st century,” while acknowledging the “courage and heroism” of New Yorkers.
Twenty-four tons of scrap steel from the fallen WTC towers were collected from salvage yards in New Jersey in 2003 and melted down in a foundry in Amite, La., to cast the bow stem.
When the molten steel was being poured into the molds Sept. 9, 2003, “those big, rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence,” recalled Capt. Kevin Wensing, who also was present. “It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.”
The next big event came March 14, when cranes at the Avondale, La., shipyard lifted the bow and guided it into place on the 684-foot hull.
“Everybody knew they were dealing with a special piece of steel and that the World Trade Center steel was in it,” crane superintendent Tony Quaglino said of the bow installation. “A lot of ceremony and some emotion there, too.”
Some leftover steel is to be kept in a secure location, said Northrop Grumman spokesman Brian Cullin.
“We recognize that this is a sensitive issue, and we are treating that steel as a sacred and protected item,” he said.
The eighth and ninth ships in the class will be called Arlington, for the location of the Pentagon, also struck by a hijacked jetliner on Sept. 11, and Somerset, named for the western Pennsylvania county where United Flight 93 crashed after its passengers fought off hijackers apparently planning to attack another Washington target.
The New York revives a name borne by at least seven previous ships — most recently the nuclear sub New York City, retired in 1997 after 18 years of service.
Others were a Revolutionary War “gondola” built by Gen. Benedict Arnold; an 1800 frigate that fought Barbary pirates in North Africa; a 74-gun ship that was burned during the Civil War; and the Navy’s flagship in the 1898 Battle of Santiago de Cuba that ended the Spanish-American War.
The battleship New York, commissioned in 1914, saw action in both world wars and then became a target ship, surviving two atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946 before being sunk off Hawaii two years later.
Despite this history and the annual Fleet Week visits by American and foreign warships, New York City has not made the Navy feel especially welcome in recent years.
City officials closed the Navy’s Stapleton base on Staten Island shortly after it was established in the early 1990s, and they prohibit nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed warships from entering the harbor for any purpose. The Navy refuses as a matter of policy to say whether any ship has nuclear warheads aboard.
Whether this might spoil Navy plans to commission New York in its namesake city in 2008 is unknown.
At the Navy League dinner, Teel unveiled a painting by military artist Tom Freeman showing the future New York slicing up the Hudson River with the proposed Freedom Tower in the background.
“There is no other ship like USS New York, nor ever will be,” Teel said.
“It is a national treasure and will be a living and breathing reminder of the price we pay as a people for our freedom.”
Ellie
A vessel born of 2 disasters
Amphib built from WTC steel withstood Katrina at shipyard
By Richard Pyle
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — With a year to go before it touches the water for the first time, the amphibious ship New York has already made history — twice.
Built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center, it weathered Hurricane Katrina, a more violent storm than it may ever encounter at sea.
That combination of disasters gives the ship a unique standing among the 2,000 workers building it in a shipyard near New Orleans, said Philip Teel, vice president of Northrop Grumman Corp., and head of its ship systems division.
“Because of 9/11 and Katrina, there is a real bond about this ship,” Teel said. “There is a huge commonality of spirit of the people in New York and the Gulf Coast, a commitment to pull together when things get difficult.”
The partly completed vessel escaped “significant wind damage” at the shipyard, and many of its workers have continued on the job despite losing homes and possessions to the Aug. 29 storm, Teel said.
“Their dedication and devotion to duty has been, to say the least, epic,” he told a Navy League dinner audience in New York on March 22.
“It sounds trite, but I saw it in their eyes,” Teel said in a separate interview. “These are very patriotic people, and the fact that the ship has steel from the trade center is a source of great pride. They view it as something incredibly special. They’re building it for the nation.”
The New York, scheduled to go into Navy service in 2008, is the fifth in a new, state-of-the-art class of warship — the LPD-17 amphibious transport docks — designed for various missions including special operations against terrorist threats.
It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-equipped Marines to be delivered ashore by a combination of helicopters and surface assault craft.
When terrorist hijackers crashed two jetliners into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, destroying the twin towers and killing nearly 2,800 people, the $700 million ship was already on the drawing board but had not been assigned a name.
Months later, Gov. George Pataki, R-N.Y., asked then-Navy Secretary Gordon England to commemorate the disaster by reviving the name New York for a ship whose role would include fighting terrorism.
England, who since has been named deputy secretary of defense, announced the decision in September 2002, saying the new New York would “project American power to the far corners of the earth and support the cause of freedom well into the 21st century,” while acknowledging the “courage and heroism” of New Yorkers.
Twenty-four tons of scrap steel from the fallen WTC towers were collected from salvage yards in New Jersey in 2003 and melted down in a foundry in Amite, La., to cast the bow stem.
When the molten steel was being poured into the molds Sept. 9, 2003, “those big, rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence,” recalled Capt. Kevin Wensing, who also was present. “It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.”
The next big event came March 14, when cranes at the Avondale, La., shipyard lifted the bow and guided it into place on the 684-foot hull.
“Everybody knew they were dealing with a special piece of steel and that the World Trade Center steel was in it,” crane superintendent Tony Quaglino said of the bow installation. “A lot of ceremony and some emotion there, too.”
Some leftover steel is to be kept in a secure location, said Northrop Grumman spokesman Brian Cullin.
“We recognize that this is a sensitive issue, and we are treating that steel as a sacred and protected item,” he said.
The eighth and ninth ships in the class will be called Arlington, for the location of the Pentagon, also struck by a hijacked jetliner on Sept. 11, and Somerset, named for the western Pennsylvania county where United Flight 93 crashed after its passengers fought off hijackers apparently planning to attack another Washington target.
The New York revives a name borne by at least seven previous ships — most recently the nuclear sub New York City, retired in 1997 after 18 years of service.
Others were a Revolutionary War “gondola” built by Gen. Benedict Arnold; an 1800 frigate that fought Barbary pirates in North Africa; a 74-gun ship that was burned during the Civil War; and the Navy’s flagship in the 1898 Battle of Santiago de Cuba that ended the Spanish-American War.
The battleship New York, commissioned in 1914, saw action in both world wars and then became a target ship, surviving two atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946 before being sunk off Hawaii two years later.
Despite this history and the annual Fleet Week visits by American and foreign warships, New York City has not made the Navy feel especially welcome in recent years.
City officials closed the Navy’s Stapleton base on Staten Island shortly after it was established in the early 1990s, and they prohibit nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed warships from entering the harbor for any purpose. The Navy refuses as a matter of policy to say whether any ship has nuclear warheads aboard.
Whether this might spoil Navy plans to commission New York in its namesake city in 2008 is unknown.
At the Navy League dinner, Teel unveiled a painting by military artist Tom Freeman showing the future New York slicing up the Hudson River with the proposed Freedom Tower in the background.
“There is no other ship like USS New York, nor ever will be,” Teel said.
“It is a national treasure and will be a living and breathing reminder of the price we pay as a people for our freedom.”
Ellie