I must have missed that press conference that announce his offer to help

From an LA Times article. about the emails on NOLA . . .

Missing and disabled at 2113 Munster in Meraux
From: Pam Gilchrist Necasie
[When] I last spoke to my brother, they had water coming into their home from the roof vents. Next call, they had water rapidly rising from the ground up. My father is disabled and 65 years old. He has long black hair, usually in a ponytail, missing front teeth. He is diabetic, has high blood pressure and other health issues.

Update: On Sunday, Necasie finally heard from her father, who said he had been airlifted from the roof of his home last Monday along with Necasie's brother and her brother's girlfriend. They spent five days in the New Orleans Superdome. When her father became sick, he was flown to a hospital in Tennessee. "He told me they flew in Al Gore's private plane, which was donated for the evacuation," Necasie said. "He told me they were dirty, like they just walked out of a Tarzan movie. I'm crying now. I just want to hold my dad."

Imagine. Offering to help without making it a photo op or issuing a press release! hmmm

UPDATE:
There really was no press conference. And it wasn't HIS plane. He just arranged it and paid for the Charter. This is from the Knoxville newspaper where the plane landed. The local mayor's quoted all over the article. Not a peep from Gore.

A couple of days ago Al Gore was down there but he refused interviews because he was down there to help. Gore chartered a plane and flew NO hospital patients to Knoxville and Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Saturday. He rode on the plane himself but wouldn't leave the plane because he didn't want it to be a political thing. Word that he was behind the flights came from the patients themselves. This was from the local paper where the plane landed.

About 140 people - mostly elderly and infirm - arrived Saturday at McGhee Tyson Airport on a chartered mercy flight from hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, welcomed to East Tennessee by a bright sun and a host of medical professionals straining at the reins to help their fellow human beings without regard to whether they were on the clock.

The displaced hurricane victims came to Tennessee on a hastily arranged flight, accompanied by doctors and carrying whatever they had in boxes, bags or, in one case, an old suitcase tied up with rope.

Former Vice President Al Gore arranged the flight and was on board, but he declined to take credit for the airlift, fearing it would be "politicized." One of the doctors on board the flight was Dr. Anderson Spickard of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, who said he had a "personal and professional" relationship with Gore. Spickard said Gore called him about 11 p.m. Friday to ask him to participate in the flight.

"The jet was chartered," he said. "It was a private effort."

Gore chartered the plane, but, Spickard said, "we'll decide who pays for it later."