GALVESTON — The former commander of the USS Cole had a quick assessment of today’s challenge for ports.
Ships now dock near cities where there are known criminal elements operating, where known terroristic groups are plotting attacks and where terrorists already have struck and killed.
These are places where local authorities say “We got it,” so ships captains can’t set up their own security on the pier and they can’t put many guards out on the ship’s deck because the local authorities fear it makes them look incompetent, Cmdr. Kirk Lippold said.
“Still, we look forward every year to Fleet Week in New York,” Lippold said.
If all of that is true of a domestic port like New York City, imagine the same dilemma in foreign ports around the world, he said.
Lippold brought his insights and his harrowing account of the October 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole to the 98th annual American Association of Port Authorities convention held this week at the Galveston Island Convention Center, 5600 Seawall Blvd.
The convention, which hosted several hundred guests from across the continent, kicked off Sunday and will continue through Friday.
Lippold delivered the keynote address Tuesday at a banquet lunch in the convention center’s Grand Ballroom to nearly 2,000 of the convention’s participants.
The former commander of the USS Cole recounted the voyage that left an indelible mark on his life and left 17 U.S. sailors dead.
With the combined efforts of the commanders and crew, the ship survived and was redeployed in 2003.
Lippold recounted the voyage and the ship’s refueling stop in the Yemeni port of Aden.
About 11 a.m., while the USS Cole was taking on fuel, a boat loaded with explosives driven by two suicide bombers detonated near its side.
The violent concussion left a bleak scene.
The commander described the vacant corridors, the darkness inside the ship, the sunlight piercing through a hole in the eviscerated steel where the ship’s galley had been.
He told of his gut-wrenching look over the ship’s railing at the gaping 40-foot-by-40-foot hole created by the explosion.
In Lippold’s message Tuesday, there were anecdotal lessons for port authorities, said Steve Cernak, director of the Port of Galveston, host of the convention.
There is a correlation between the Cole attack and security measures ports must now implement, he said.
