Amphibious Group 2 of the Atlantic Fleet. On 25 August 2005 Tortuga and her crew were pulled from a training exercise and sent to New Orleans to become part of Joint Task Force Katrina. She was the first Navy ship to sail up the Mississippi River following the hurricane and berthed on the West Bank of New Orleans Naval Station. The ship instantly became a major rally point for the scattered military and civilian forces across New Orleans. Tortugas crew conducted rescue missions in the flooded Ninth Ward and assisted local officials from St. Bernard Parish. Crew members employed combat rubber raiding craft (CRRCs) which allowed them to search flooded areas with many underwater obstacles. As the crew rescued people from neighborhoods they were brought back to Tortuga with 7 and 11 meter RHIBs. Evacuees were processed, received medical attention, and were forwarded to their next destination at the earliest possible time. As water receded in New Orleans and the CRRCs became useless, the ship served as the headquarters for the 618th ESC "Nasty", and the 307th Eng Bn, 82nd Airborne Division U.S. Army camped out on the Naval Station, while they worked in conjunction with U.S. Navy units to conduct rescue and clean up missions. On 14 October 2005, the U.S. Navy announced that Tortuga would be forward-deployed to Sasebo, Japan to replace . Tortuga arrived in Sasebo 31 March 2006 for turnover and assignment as part of the U.S. Navy's Forward Deployed Naval Forces (FDNF). On 12 April the crews of the two ships completed an exchange-of-command process. Conducted in 12 days, the hull swap between Fort McHenry and Tortuga was the quickest in the history of the U.S. Navy. Tortugas former crew departed Sasebo on 13 April 2006 to return to Little Creek on board Fort McHenry. On 15 May, only a month following the swap, Tortuga departed for a three-month deployment. The deployment was centered around an annual exercise called Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) 2006. Tortuga joined a newly established task group (TG 73.5) reporting directly to Commander, Logistics Group WESTPAC out of Singapore. The group consisted of five ships, Tortuga, the destroyer , the frigate , the supply ship , and the United States Coast Guard vessel . The group visited and operated with the navies of Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and Philippines. USS Tortuga visited the island of Iwo Jima in