"..Greg Simon, the pres of FasterCures, recounted the determined (and agonizing) logistical coordination that resulted, finally, in the 2 airlifts of patients and evacuees to Tennessee. (If you have time, you should click over and read the fuller story yourself.) Here's my take on it.
Gore flew from Tenn. to Dallas (to pick up the chartered plane), to La. to Tenn. – and then did the whole thing again the next day. The idea was hatched Thursday night, and the advocates for the mission, including Simon, Gore and staff butted heads with the bureacrats for the next 2 days through mid-day Saturday.
At nearly every turn, FEMA or NDMS and military officials tried to stop these 2 flights.
The 1st flight out on Saturday was mostly patients in need of supervised care, including dialysis and insulin, and the second one on Sunday had more evacuees and fewer patients.
After landing slots were denied numerous times during the planning, the one person in Washington who would grant the 2 landing slots ended up being the single Democratic member of Bush's cabinet, Norm Mineta. That took a personal call from Gore to Mineta to override the instructions from below to withhold landing slots."
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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. 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."
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Why would state mayors, a US Senator, and others be discouraged from mounting rescue missions to New Orleans?
Why would federal government departments instruct their staff to block these efforts by witholding landing rights?