A Second Miracle on Ice (well actually on a River)

Saving the S.S. United States could be the Remedy to save the soul of the United States

Every February, I have an urge on one of these frozen weekends to sit down and watch the movie Miracle. The Disney account of the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” U.S. Olympic hockey team, who defied the odds and denied the almighty Soviet Union hockey team in Lake Placid by defeating them and ultimately winning the gold medal, stirs my soul as both a hockey fan and as an American. I was only 7 when we watched the game tape-delayed on our small black and white tv in the living room of my family’s Youngstown home, so it wasn’t until years later did I realize the impact of that victory on the American psyche. We were down and out as a country, we had lost confidence in ourselves to do anything in terms of policy or practice well, and we paid the price.

America needs another symbolic gesture to bring us together again, to make us recollect our sense of pride from the past, while positioning ourselves to take on the problems of the future head-on. And that symbol just happens to be moored to Dock 82 on the Delaware River in this great city of Philadelphia.

For 25 years, the S.S. United States has been moored awaiting its salvation and avoiding the salvage yard. It is currently owned and operated by a conservancy established to save it, run by the granddaughter of the man who designed it. And that beautiful ship was never just a gorgeous vessel intended to transport the rich and famous, it was designed in conjunction with the Defense Department so it could be converted to a troop transport, as so many of the great liners were used for during the first two world wars. The engines were so powerful, not only does it still hold the record for the fastest trans-Atlantic crossing, its top speed was actually classified.

On several occasions it looked like the private sector would save the ship. However several cruise lines determined the cost of retrofitting, particularly getting the ship to meet modern design code, was too costly. And prior to Covid, a New York real estate mogul wanted to convert it to a dockside multi-use property, which is worthy in pursuit but in today’s economy may not be practical as an investment.

For me, the solution is clear. And that is for the U.S. government to spend infrastructure dollars to re-create this mighty vessel so that it can be used along any coastline in the US or the world as an emergency response vehicle to a natural disaster, such as a hurricane or tsunami.

We are witnessing more and more catastrophic events associated with global climate volatility, in the U.S. Within the last 20 years, hurricanes like Katrina, Ida, Maria, and Rita have decimated cities and islands, to the point where getting badly needed goods to people afterwards ?becomes more logistically complicated. Well, imagine if a vessel like the S.S. United States, with engines that can move her as swiftly as a fire truck to an inferno, can arrive in a port hours after the disaster. The ship should be outfitted with rooms for thousands of families to shelter, an infirmary to help patients and local hospitals save lives, back up green power (i.e. wind turbines and solar panels erected atop the ship, utility scale batteries below) that can be a source of back up generation, and desalinization capabilities to provide fresh water to that city or island, and within the ship a storage facility with food, blankets, and medicines. All of this can be engineered using today’s technology.

Retrofitting a ship like the United States would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. But those dollars can be spent within this country, using Philadelphia shipbuilding labor and components sourced within the country. Every state can make a contribution, so specific rooms within the ship reflect the heritage of our 50 states, D.C, Puerto Rico, Guam, etc. We can have a sense of pride everyday watching the ship in drydock online being restored to her former glory. And when first deployed, we can all share a collective lump in the throat, watching footage of her majestic sleek body pulling into a harbor to assuage those afflicted by the tragedy of a natural disaster.

Putting Americans to work to come together to restore a monument to our bold and innovative thinking that happened so often in our past is the perfect way to bring us together for the future. All we have to do is to look to Pier 82 during this restorative 2022 and bring the SS United States back to life.