Al Gore Quietly Worked to Help New Orleans Victims

[Ant]

Gore helps airlift New Orleans victims
9/9/2005, 9:27 p.m. CT
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD
The Associated Press       

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.

[h cottie is bac-tive?]

got fucked outta the presidency

[7even]

now that would have been a real president.











LMAO.. sorry I know that so so called for and so so cliché but I couldnt resist.

[Don Jacob]

now that would have been a real president.











LMAO.. sorry I know that so so called for and so so cliché but I couldnt resist.

i really like al gore but i bet if he was president he'd be ABLE to do that....never-the-less, props to al gore , gotta love the dude

[ωεεźγ ғ]

death to bush, the guy who lost to him is givin more a crap about the job bush should be doing

[J Bananas]

dont get me wrong i hate bush but i think al gore wouldve been a shitty president, plus after the election he got hella fat like a weak emotional girl after a bad breakup. what a slouch.

[Sikotic™]

Props to him.

['EclipZe]

good move by him

[OnlyGodCanJudgeMe]

Al's a great guy

[Fathom]

And how many Republican politicians quietly gave aid?

[Don Jacob]

dont get me wrong i hate bush but i think al gore wouldve been a shitty president, plus after the election he got hella fat like a weak emotional girl after a bad breakup. what a slouch.

::raises the people's eyebrow::


that just means he really wanted to be president, and usually when poeople really want to do something they would've done a good job

i'd vote forhim if he ran again

[King Tech Quadafi]

dont get me wrong i hate bush but i think al gore wouldve been a shitty president, plus after the election he got hella fat like a weak emotional girl after a bad breakup. what a slouch.

lol...he grew a beard too....fuckin lying in bed for weeks refusing to touch food ass bum lol

[BowDown]

Tech... lol @ your avatar

[King Tech Quadafi]

lol what u know about Ariana Airlines? Thats back in the days man...ill fuck these stewardesses too

[BowDown]

lol what u know about Ariana Airlines? Thats back in the days man...ill fuck these stewardesses too

My mom's uncle was the head of Ariana homie... before the CWalkers (Communists) came in...