A nuance missed by the media, when the medical ship Comfort is brought up:
The Comfort is normally docked in Baltimore with a skeleton crew to perform maintenance, etc. When she is to be deployed, more crew arrives and they prepare to go to sea. When ready, she sails to Norfolk, VA.
Why Norfolk? That’s where the medical staff joins the ship, and they load all of the supplies that can’t be indefinitely stored on a mothballed ship. Only after this is completed does the ship set sail to the crisis zone.
By waiting until after the disaster before deciding to activate the Comfort they wasted about a week because of the time needed to get the ship ready.