Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
September 6, 2007 By Carol Rosenberg
The Pentagon's Southern Command is sending a U.S. Navy ship to the waters off Nicaragua to help in the relief efforts from Hurricane Felix, which struck Honduras and Nicaragua earlier this week.
The Category 5 Felix slammed through central America earlier this week, killing at least 18 people in Honduras and Nicaragua -- and injuring many more.
In Miami, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, Navy Adm. James Stavridis, also ordered a survey team to help the U.S. Agency for International Development, a State Department affiliate agency, evaluate what kind of relief the United States might give to those areas affected by the storm.
Then late Wednesday, Southcom announced that Stavridis had dispatched the USS Wasp from a huge multi-national naval exercise in the waters off the Panama Canal to help in any rescue and recovery efforts.
Wasp, which is based out of Norfolk, Va., was serving as a ''command-and-control vessel'' for a 30-plus fleet of foreign and U.S. ships taking part in Panamax, which began before Labor Day and runs through this week.
It should arrive off the coast of Nicaragua on Thursday.
Wasp is designed as an amphibious assault ship, 840 feet long, and resembles a mini aircraft carrier with a long deck that is designed to land and launch helicopters ferrying U.S. forces to shore.
But Wasp also has medical and dental facilities that can treat 600 casualties, either from combat or during humanitarian missions. It has four main and two emergency operating rooms, X-ray rooms, a blood bank, laboratories, and patient wards.
Southcom's operations chief, Rear Adm. Harry Harris, said because Wasp was already in the Caribbean Sea it ``transitioned quickly from its exercise scenario into an operational capability ready to coordinate and synchronize U.S. military assistance to the people of Nicaragua.''
The ship was sent after Nicaragua's government asked for U.S. assistance, Southcom said, and in coordination with the U.S. Embassy in Managua.
Earlier Wednesday, a nine-member survey team based at Joint Task Force-Bravo in Soto Cano, Honduras, surveyed some of the damage.
The Honduras task force earlier sent a medical team to provide relief in Peru following this summer's earthquake.
September 6, 2007 By Carol Rosenberg
The Pentagon's Southern Command is sending a U.S. Navy ship to the waters off Nicaragua to help in the relief efforts from Hurricane Felix, which struck Honduras and Nicaragua earlier this week.
The Category 5 Felix slammed through central America earlier this week, killing at least 18 people in Honduras and Nicaragua -- and injuring many more.
In Miami, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, Navy Adm. James Stavridis, also ordered a survey team to help the U.S. Agency for International Development, a State Department affiliate agency, evaluate what kind of relief the United States might give to those areas affected by the storm.
Then late Wednesday, Southcom announced that Stavridis had dispatched the USS Wasp from a huge multi-national naval exercise in the waters off the Panama Canal to help in any rescue and recovery efforts.
Wasp, which is based out of Norfolk, Va., was serving as a ''command-and-control vessel'' for a 30-plus fleet of foreign and U.S. ships taking part in Panamax, which began before Labor Day and runs through this week.
It should arrive off the coast of Nicaragua on Thursday.
Wasp is designed as an amphibious assault ship, 840 feet long, and resembles a mini aircraft carrier with a long deck that is designed to land and launch helicopters ferrying U.S. forces to shore.
But Wasp also has medical and dental facilities that can treat 600 casualties, either from combat or during humanitarian missions. It has four main and two emergency operating rooms, X-ray rooms, a blood bank, laboratories, and patient wards.
Southcom's operations chief, Rear Adm. Harry Harris, said because Wasp was already in the Caribbean Sea it ``transitioned quickly from its exercise scenario into an operational capability ready to coordinate and synchronize U.S. military assistance to the people of Nicaragua.''
The ship was sent after Nicaragua's government asked for U.S. assistance, Southcom said, and in coordination with the U.S. Embassy in Managua.
Earlier Wednesday, a nine-member survey team based at Joint Task Force-Bravo in Soto Cano, Honduras, surveyed some of the damage.
The Honduras task force earlier sent a medical team to provide relief in Peru following this summer's earthquake.