JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Hurricane Dennis has put Navy Commander Michael G. Van Durick in a unique situation.

Months before Van Durick officially becomes commander of the DDG 98, he gets to see how the new destroyer handles in rough water.

The ship, in the final months of construction at Northrop Grumman’s Pascagoula shipyard, will be deployed before Hurricane Dennis makes its expected landfall on the Gulf Coast.

Northrop Grumman officials want to ensure the vessel remains intact when the shipyard turns it over to the Navy on Aug. 8.

“This sortie is another opportunity for us to learn from the shipbuilding community about the ship, see it underway and assist them,” Van Durick said Thursday – a day before USS Forrest Sherman was to leave the shipyard port.

“This doesn’t happen very often. We make deliberate efforts to avoid those type of storms around the world.”

Indeed, the Navy’s Optimum Track Ships Routing is a formalized process to keep ships out of bad weather, but the situation arises more often at Northrop Grumman than any other shipbuilder because of its location near the Gulf of Mexico.

Dennis grew to a Category 2 hurricane Thursday as it churned through the Caribbean. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami cautioned all Gulf Coast residents from Louisiana to Florida to pay attention as Dennis, still hundreds of miles southeast of Miami, strengthened. It winds stood at 105 mph Thursday.

Van Durick said Northrop Grumman was working with forecasters and Navy weather tracking systems to map the best route for the ship.

“This is a billion dollar taxpayer asset that is still within Northrop Grumman control. Taking her to sea can offer her much better safety than being tied up at the pier,” Van Durick said.

Teno Henderson, vice president of Northrop’s DDG program, said the company is taking other precautions at its four facilities in Mississippi and Louisiana.

Henderson said Northrop will secure two amphibious ships and a polar oil tanker at the New Orleans facility; and tie down three other ships at Pascagoula.

Northrop Grumman is Mississippi’s largest private employer with operations in Pascagoula and Gulfport as well as in New Orleans, employing just under 20,000 workers in both states. It shares destroyer contracts with Bath Iron Works in Maine.

Depending on the severity of the storm, the Mississippi shipyard may have to shut down for a few days just as it did during Hurricane Ivan last year.

Northrop officials wouldn’t comment on the economic impact of last year’s temporary closure.

“We’ve been through some of these things down here and it’s a very dangerous situation for those who have to stay in the yard to maintain some vigilance over the yard,” Henderson said.

He said officials didn’t want to take a chance with the new destroyer.

“Anytime you have a ship pierside, you are going to sustain some type of damage from wave action,” Henderson said. “We don’t want to send it right into the teeth of the gale.”

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