From Pentagon Producer Larry Shaughnessy:
Today in the Pentagon briefing, Joint Chief Chairman Adm. Mullen mentioned that the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson is more than floating airport – it’s also a floating medical clinic with 3 operating rooms and 51 beds and it’s a floating water treatment plant capable of making “hundreds of thousands of gallons” fresh water a day.
In fact, every US Navy warship has to be able to make fresh water for sailors to drink, cook with, clean their clothes and equipment with.
As for the USS Carl Vinson… The Navy says it takes sea water and through a series of high pressure filters and reverse osmosis creates 400,000 gallons of purified fresh drinking water each day. Since the Carl Vinson, which in normal combat duty would be carrying about 5,000 people, is only carrying 3,200 people… they have a large surplus of fresh water that can be sent into Port Au Prince for the victims of the earthquake.
The Navy couldn’t tell me exactly how this water would be moved from the ship to shore in this crisis, but in the past they usually use large flexible bladders that are carried by either heavy lift helicopters of large hovercraft that can go from the ship right up onto a beach and unload.