http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/09/09/national/a124207D29.DTL&type=printable
Gore Helps Airlift New Orleans Victims
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD, Associated Press Writer
Friday, September 9, 2005
(09-09) 19:27 PDT Knoxville, Tenn. (AP) --
Al Gore helped airlift some 270 Katrina evacuees on two private
charters from New Orleans, acting at the urging of a doctor who saved
the life of the former vice president's son.
Gore criticized the Bush administration's slow response to Katrina in
a speech Friday in San Francisco, but refused to be interviewed about
the mercy missions he financed and flew last Saturday and Sunday.
However, Dr. Anderson Spickard, who is Gore's personal physician and
accompanied him on the flights, said: "Gore told me he wanted to do
this because like all of us he wanted to seize the opportunity to do
what one guy can do, given the assets that he has."
In the speech, Gore urged that the Bush administration be held
accountable for the government's inadequate relief response,
particularly "when the corpses of American citizens are floating in
toxic floodwaters five days after a hurricane struck."
Bush administration officials have said Katrina's damage could not
have been anticipated, but Gore rejected that.
"What happened was not only knowable, it was known in advance, in
great and painstaking detail," Gore told the Sierra Club's national
convention. "They did tabletop planning exercises. They identified
exactly what the scientific evidence showed would take place."
An account of the flights was posted this week on a Democratic Party
Web page. It was written by Greg Simon, president of the
Washington-based activist group FasterCures. Simon, who helped put
together the mission, also declined an interview.
On Sept. 1, three days after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast,
Simon learned that Dr. David Kline, a neurosurgeon who operated on
Gore's son, Albert, after a life-threatening auto accident in 1989,
was trying to get in touch with Gore. Kline was stranded with patients
at Charity Hospital in New Orleans.
"The situation was dire and becoming worse by the minute — food and
water running out, no power, 4 feet of water surrounding the hospital
and ... corpses outside," Simon wrote.
Gore responded immediately, telephoning Kline and agreeing to
underwrite the $50,000 each for the two flights, although Larry Flax,
founder of California Pizza Kitchens, later pledged to pay for one of
them.
"None of the airlines involved required a contract or any written
guarantee of payment before sending their planes and volunteer crews,"
Simon wrote of the American Airlines flights. "One official said if
Gore promised to pay, that was good enough for them."
He also recruited two doctors, Spickard and Gore's cousin, retired
Col. Dar LaFon, an emergency physician who once ran the military
hospital at Tallil Air Base in Iraq.
Most critically, Gore worked to cut through government red tape,
personally calling Gov. Phil Bredesen to get Tennessee's support and
U.S. Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta to secure landing rights in
New Orleans.
About 140 people, many of them sick, landed in Knoxville on Saturday.
The second flight, with 130 evacuees, landed the next day in
Chattanooga.
--
Yang
a.a. #28
AthD (h.c.) conferred by the regents of the LCL
a.a. pastor #-273.15, the most frigid church of Celcius nee Kelvin
EAC Econometric Forecast and Sorcery Division
The Bush 'balanced' budget: -3 trillion and worsening
The Bush 'economic' policy: 12.5 million FEWER jobs than Clinton and counting
The Bush Iraq lie: -3153 GIs, one friend's co-worker's son and mounting
Having Bush ***** up my country: Worthless
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