Eideard

Peering through thick fog, hundreds stood on the banks of the Mississippi River early Tuesday and cheered as the latest piece of naval history cut through the haze and belched its horn.

The onlookers waved flags at the New York, a freshly built 684-foot Navy warship slowly making its way to New York City, where it will be commissioned in early November and renamed the USS New York.

The $1.2 billion ship, which is designed to launch cargo, troop transport ships and helicopters for warfare missions, is named for the city that suffered the first attacks of 9/11. Its bow stem was built with 7½ tons of scrap metal excavated from the World Trade Center ruins…

The ship and New Orleans share a bond: Both are reminders of the two deadliest American tragedies of this decade — the terrorist attacks in 2001 and the drowning of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. About 2,700 people died in the New York attacks; New Orleans lost about 1,200 residents in the floods…

The New York is the first of three Navy ships to be named for places associated with 9/11, said Ed Winter, a Northrop Grumman spokesman. Under construction are the Somerset, named for the Pennsylvania county where one of the four jets hijacked by terrorists crashed, and the Arlington, named after the site of the attack on the Pentagon in Virginia.

Tears welled in Loretta Corbett’s eyes as she waved a 5-foot-tall American flag. Originally from Ridgewood, N.J., Corbett moved to New Orleans a few months before Katrina. The New York attacks killed 27 Ridgewood residents, she said.

“It’s ghostly,” Corbett said as the ship plied downriver through the haze. “It feels like all those lives are following that ship out to sea.”

I’m pleased to see the ship was build at Avondale. We took a lot of pride in what we built – back in the day when I worked there. I imagine that hasn’t changed.