Tulsa World: USS New York heads home

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USS New York heads home
The ship is made with steel from the World Trade Center.

The newly built USS New York sails down the Mississippi River on Tuesday through the Port of New Orleans. The ship, an assault vessel that can carry helicopters, is headed to New York City, where it will be commissioned next month. Bill Haber/Associated Press

By ALAN SAYRE Associated Press
Published: 10/14/2009 2:26 AM
Last Modified: 10/14/2009 4:47 AM

A Navy assault ship built with tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center towers began its journey to New York on Tuesday, sailing down the Mississippi River in a pea-soup fog as watchers along a levee strained for a glimpse.

The USS New York, named to commemorate the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the eastern United States, left the Northrop Grumman shipyard where it was built for the trip to its namesake city.

The $1 billion ship will be formally commissioned in New York in early November.

The New York, an amphibious dock vessel, is 684 feet long and can carry up to 800 Marines. It has a flight deck that can handle helicopters and the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

Four tugboats performed intricate maneuvers to pull the warship from the dock at the New Orleans-area shipyard and turn it 180 degrees toward the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

An armed Coast Guard speedboat and a hel- icopter guarded the vessel. The ship will sail through the gulf and around Florida before turning to New York.

A deputy project manager, Doug Lounsberry, said the vessel was important to the builders, not only because it honors those killed in the terrorist attacks, but because the builders were hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 during the early phases of construction.

"It's like raising a kid," he said. "We're sending this one off to college. But after they leave, they remain near and dear to your heart."

Farther down the Mississippi, hundreds of people lined up along the riverbank to watch the ship pass.

Around 9:45 a.m., a man called, "Here she comes!" prompting well-wishers to raise U.S. flags and camera phones as the hulking warship emerged from the haze.

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 ship was already on the drawing board. The Defense Department announced in September 2002 that the ship's name would be New York.

About 7.5 tons of World Trade Center steel was melted at the Bradken Inc. foundry in Amite, La., and used in the New York's bow. By ALAN SAYRE Associated Press

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FUTURE WORLD, Tulsa (10/14/2009 9:51:43 PM)

She's a beauty!

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