Gore Helped Airlift Katrina Refugees - Former VP Criticizes Administration

[pbartch]

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050909191909990008

Updated: 09:25 PM EDT
Gore Helped Airlift Katrina Refugees
Former Vice President Criticizes Administration's Response
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD, AP

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (Sept. 9) - 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 on Sept. 3 and 4.

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, a specialist in internal medicine who once ran the military hospital in Baghdad.

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 Sept. 3. The second flight, with 130 evacuees, landed the next day in Chattanooga.

Associated Press writer Terence Chea in San Francisco contributed to this report.

[Erika]

1. He deserved to be our president

God bless him. W would have gone for the same plan if Congress gave them tax credits and exemptions from legal liability.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. In point of fact, and by all counts, he WAS our President!!!

[Erika]

3. Yep.

[Erika]

4. Can you imagine Bush/Cheney using their own $ ?

to help the black poor? Not in a million years.

[tavalon]

14. Well, Jeb gave $20.00

I read his boasting comment. It was during the time that the Bushes were trying to out asshole each other.

[IndyOp]

13. IS - IS our President - the line of Presidents stopped

when the courts put */satan in office.

[Beam Me Up]

23. I agree. * is NOT a president. He is a FAKE. A retarded flack catcher.

From the selection of 2000 onward there has been NO GENUINE PRESIDENT of the United States. The man in that office is nothing but a neo-con hand puppet.

[Liberal Dose]

25. Indeed he is! I refer to him as President Gore or President-in-exile-Gore

I :cry: and :grr: every time I think about the fact that NOT ONE SENATOR had the guts to stand up for the black caucus in 2000.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. One hundred grand out of his own pocket

I expect it from people like Diddy and Jay-Z and Sean and Leonardo -- and applaud them for it -- but not from politicians, many of whom are not as rich as we suppose them to be. (At least the Democrats.)

But there was Al Gore, checkbook at the ready, pen in hand and asking "who do I make it out to?"

Al Gore. The man the Super-Lefties can't forgive for his wife's creation of the PMRC (though somehow Frank Zappa was able to understand it). The man the neo-Cons called "Algore", who was mocked and lied about and who eventually became the "mark" in America's silent coup.

He's also one of the few men who have been in politics in the last generation who understands "The Big Picture", who promoted the internet (singular) as long ago as 1987, who has been concerned with energy, economic, and ecological issues most of his adult life while terms like "Peak Oil" and "Thermohaline Current" are novelties to the chattering magpies who laughed him out of politics.

Today, the USA staggers like a drunk and groans under the weight of the burden of Bushnomics, yearning for Better Times when wages rose faster than prices, when crime and poverty and disease and war were in retreat, and when medical advances weren't halted by superstitious religious radicals.

I'm glad it's taken only a scant five years for people to recognize what we really lost on 12/13/2000. My hope is that our loss is merely temoporary.

--p!

[oldtime dfl_er]

7. Pigwidgeon you rock

that was right on. I would definitely support a Gore candidacy in 08 if the guy would have us. But I wouldn't blame him if he never wanted to get into politics again.

[Dogmudgeon]

10. Thanks!

The day Gore announces, I'm volunteering.

I agree: If he never comes back to politics, the loss is ours. But if he does, he will have the most passionate, committed, die-hard campaigners the American political world will have ever seen.

What are the chances? Given an undeniable, serious crisis of the ecology AND the economy (the pain will make it real to insulated Americans and Europeans), Gore will run IF AND ONLY IF he is "drafted". In other words, if "Gore 2008/2012/2016" is already a going concern and lots of people are in danger of dying.

Otherwise, the man has his own life to enjoy.

The road not taken, in our case, has led us to a very bad place. Experience keeps a dear school, but Americans refuse to learn in any other.

--p!

[tavalon]

16. Do you think he would tell the usual cabal of DLC idiots

to talk a long walk off a short pier, because otherwise, he would be muzzled just as he was during his campaign. He has been a far better politician and man since his candidacy. If he could bring that to a campaign, barring Diebold, he would win.

[Dogmudgeon]

31. He's already done that

Gore, who was among the most conservative of the Democrats in 1992, has moved to the left of the pack, and belongs to a couple of progressive Democratic organizations.

Too many of us at DU are wa-a-a-ay too concerned about the DLC. The DLC was fine for the early 1990s, but we've all moved on. The real action in the Democratic Party is quickly shifting to the Gore/Dean wing. I think we should expect to see more DLCers make that same shift. The experience of voting for the Iraq War Resolution and then discovering that they had been lied to in both public and confidential briefings has been far more painful than we realize. People around here like to scream "Whore!" and "Traitor!", but that's nothing compared to the twin feelings of guilt and the shame of having been "played" by a bumpkin and a grifter like George Bush.

Gore has "been through the fire" in ways that no other modern politican has been (though Clinton and Kerry have certainly seen a lot of it from opposite ends of the electoral process). He is no longer "polite", though he will never behave in any manner less than that of a gentleman. Gore has emerged as a political Man of Steel -- why so many Democrats are willing to dismiss him is beyond me.

BUT ... it's Gore's call to make. He's got the power and the wisdom to use it. We can only wait and hope -- and our adversaries, wait and tremble.

--p!

[pbartch]

26. I'd vote for Al Gore in a heart beat

I mailed this story all over the place!!!

[tinrobot]

17. He put his money where his mouth is...

I wish more politicians would do that.

I think about what this country would have become if he had rightfully take office and I get so sad for wht it is today.

[melody]

24. well said, amen n/t

[yorkiemommie1]

6. George, THIS is how a president acts !

he rolls up his sleeves and gets to work.

[johnaries]

8. Kicked and recommended for President Gore!

I knew that he was planning a second flight, but this is the first I'd heard about it being successful! Thanks for posting this!

"One official said if Gore promised to pay, that was good enough for them."
How great is that!

Gawd, I'd love to see him re-elected in 2008!

[rateyes]

12. What a great campaign slogan

RE-elect President Gore 2008.

[AlGore-08.com]

9. The full story is amazing - - especially how FEMA tried to stop them

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/7/164747/4155

The Fastercures Airlift From New Orleans

by Greg Simon, President FasterCures

On September 3rd and 4th, FasterCures worked with a small dedicated group of people to airlift approximately 270 medical patients and evacuees from the New Orleans airport to hospitals and shelters in Knoxville and Chattanooga, Tennessee. This is the story of how it happened.

On Thursday, September 1st, my friend Jill Chozen of San Francisco called to ask if I could put someone in touch with Al Gore. Dr. David Kline, the father in law of Jill’s friend Denise Kline, was stranded in Charity hospital in New Orleans. The situation was dire and becoming worse by the minute – food and water running out, no power, four feet of water surrounding the hospital and alligators eating corpses outside. David is a neurosurgeon and needed to take his patients out of the hospital as soon as possible. David asked Denise to find Al Gore for help because David knew Gore from operating on Gore’s son after a life threatening auto accident nearly 16 years ago.

(snip)

Steve called back. He had found one, possibly two planes. It would cost $50,000 per flight. FasterCures would have to be prepared to sign contracts that day. I called my home office and got permission to do that. I emailed Gore and asked for his help in raising the money. He committed to paying for the planes and urged us to move forward. He also offered to bring two doctors, his cousin Col. Dar LaFon, USAF Ret'd, who served in Somalia and ran the military hospital in Baghdad after the invasion. He was board certified in Altitude Physiology and Internal Medicine. He also brought a Doctor from Vanderbilt, Dr. Anderson Spickard.

(snip)

We were now desperate to find a contact on the ground at the New Orleans airport to help triage ambulatory medical patients into these planes. FEMA in Washington was non responsive. We spoke to the aide to one of the deputies at FEMA and was told they did not need or want our help since the hospital evacuation was going fine. We looked at the reports from CNN about the conditions at the field hospital at the airport and discounted that opinion immediately.

(snip)

(Around midnight on September 4th) Mimi (Riley, Deputy Director from NDMS) was unmovable. We were not military and that was that. She tried to sound grateful for our intentions but she was not going to have outsiders help. I even offered to GIVE her the planes and the crews and the hospitals and let her run it through her NDMS system but she would have none of it. She asked me at least to delay until noon the next day and I said I would try.

I called Steve and told him to delay the planes. I called Al. It was 2 a.m. in Nashville. He was planning to leave for Dallas at 4 a.m. to meet the plane. I told Tipper what was going on. She said, "Greg, you can't delay it now. It's too late, the doctors are flying in here to fly with Al to Dallas." Al got on the phone and said we could not delay. I tried to scare him. What if something went wrong with a patient on the plane? What if the military did not cooperate on the ground and no patients got on the plane? He refused to budge. Col. LaFon could handle the patients and Al would trust that when they landed they would break through the resistance and succeed.

(snip)

Over the next three hours (from 2a.m. to 5 a.m.) I was called by an array of Majors and Lieutenant Commanders telling me to stop. ("I don't mean to be rude, sir, but you must not do this. You must stop this now.") Major Webb from GPMRC (don't ask), Grant Meade from ESF. Major Lindquist from TRANSCOM (at last!) all telling me they would not cooperate and they did not know how we had gotten permission to land. I never mentioned Gore's name because no one ever asked me who was paying for the flights or how we had come so far.

Finally at 5 a.m. Major Lindquist said if we landed he would not put any patients on the plane and we should expect no cooperation and there was no place to store the plane so we would have to leave.

(snip)

(On Sunday, September 5th, after airlifting 270 people to Tennessee) We decided not to return to New Orleans because the medical patients we could take had been helped. (We could not take bedridden patients on stretchers on this plane.) Gore said that on the second trip to New Orleans, the doctors at the airport told him that the evacuation of the first 90 ambulatory patients had been the tipping point in their ability to adequately care for the other bedridden patients. They also noted that the military evacuations did not really pick up steam until after we "motivated" them with our private effort.

Of note:
Throughout the entire operation in Tennessee, EMS operations in Chicago had stayed prepared to handle patients or evacuees. None ever arrived because the military did not want us to use Chicago. The volunteers in Chicago were amazing in their desire to help. Mayor Daly had been rebuffed earlier when he offered a complete mobile hospital unit for the airport and a tent city as well. Sen. Barack Obama called Gore and asked how had Gore managed to land in New Orleans when the Senator had been refused landing rights to help.

None of the airlines involved required a contract or any written guarantee of payment before sending their planes and volunteer crews – the first time Steve Davison had ever witnessed that in 15 years of chartering planes for political campaigns and other events. One official said if Gore promised to pay, that was good enough for them.

[Moderator]

11. pbartch

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source.


Thank you.


DU Moderator

[pbartch]

27. I'm Sorry I didn't follow the rules. I put this on late last night.

[ComerPerro]

15. That would be hard, to have to decide who goes and who stays

But I am really glad that Gore was doing this.

Meanwhile, where the hell was Bush?

[wildflowergardener]

18. Alligators

This article makes me wonder about the reason they seem to be finding less dead than expected (If it is not just a lie). I don't think they should assume that just because they can not find the bodies that not as many people died - given that this article says that alligators were eating the corpses outside the hospital.

Meg

[spanone]

19. Bush* flew in with a 747 and flew out with NO evacuees.

You be the judge.

[Mabus]

22. (small) Correction

Bush flew in for a photo-op. Gore went to help and didn't give interviews or pose for the cameras.

Bush didn't go to "help" he went to try to salvage his "image".

[blue neen]

20. Al Gore is a leader. We need him, and he came through,

even though a criminal was actually in Gores's rightly place as president.


edited for typo

[are_we_united_yet]

21. Great story

except it is hard to be a refugee in your own Country.

[AlGore-08.com]

28. Complain to the AP, it's their word, not Gore's or Simon's

If you read the account of the rescue posted by Simon (link above in an earlier post of mine) you'll see he doesn't refer to the victims as "refugees". And since Gore refuses to be interviewed by the AP about the airlift, we know he didn't call them "refugees" either.

[are_we_united_yet]

30. Doesn't matter since the headline is what is read first

I harp on this because if you don't point it out when it is reprinted, essentially the Bush Adminsitration gets free publicity for their sinister strategy to marginalize the people affected by these two (yes two) disasters.

Calling them refugees implies that they have no right to return New Orleans.

They can print whatever they want. We at DU can amplify and correct as necessary.

[blm]

29. Truth be told, many of them have never been treated as equal citizens in

this country, even if their families have been here for a century.