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Good Samaritan Rescues Evacuees with Chartered Jet: David Perez Finds Homes for 86 Hurricane Victims
5 September
2005
Good Morning America
CHARLES GIBSON, ABC NEWS
(OC) All right. Thanks, Lee. Now back to the Katrina disaster and a man who truly embodies what it means to be a good Samaritan.
CHARLES GIBSON
(VO) The haunting faces of the hurricane victims have touched everyone, I think. But this man decided that feeling bad about it or making donations just wasn't enough.
CHARLES GIBSON
(OC) And he began an amazing mission of mercy. ABC's David Muir is still in New Orleans and has that story. David, good morning.
DAVID MUIR, ABC NEWS
(OC) Good morning, Charlie. You know, this California businessman was like so many Americans who have watched these images. And another image this morning of the flooded streets here in Canal Street. It's now raining, as if New Orleans needed anymore water. What this businessman decided to do was to charter a Learjet, bring it to Baton Rouge, to bring people back. And that's exactly what he did over the weekend. He put 17 families onboard. There were 16 children. He even took the family pets, three dogs, two cats, and a bird, we're told, and got them out of here.
DAVID PEREZ, GOOD SAMARITAN
Let's get the kids in school.
DAVID MUIR
(VO) Fed up with what he says is the government's slow response in coming to the rescue of residents along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast, a California businessman is taking action.
graphics: hurricane katrina
graphics: mission of mercy
DAVID PEREZ
Okay, we're leaving at 11:30.
DAVID MUIR
(VO) Over the weekend, David Perez launched an effort to evacuate some of New Orleans on his own. Spending $200,000, Perez chartered a Boeing 737 and upon landing in Louisiana, he unloaded much-needed supplies he had purchased at a local Costco and later reloaded the plane with 86 weary hurricane victims.
DAVID PEREZ
We will do whatever it takes to make you comfortable.
DAVID MUIR
(VO) Their destination, San Diego, where Perez has organized a contingent of local families ready to open their hearts and their homes as temporary shelters.
DAVID PEREZ
These people need to have their kids in school and back, you know, get their feet back on the ground. They have gone through devastation.
LOUISIANA RESIDENT, MALE
I don't have nowhere else to go. I'm looking for a new start. A new beginning.
DAVID PEREZ
I'm taking everybody to Sea World and Disneyland.
DAVID PEREZ
It's a joke. Everybody took a vacation from this disaster.
DAVID MUIR
(VO) Perez was there every step of the way, handing out boarding passes and helping with luggage. And, when the plane touched down in San Diego, tears of devastation finally turned into tears of joy.
DAVID PEREZ
If I could save one life by bringing that, that baby water and bringing - formula, which is what I brought out, diapers to comfort them, whatever I can do, if it, if I save one life, just one life, then I make one person's life better on this trip, it's worth a million dollars to me.
DAVID MUIR
(OC) You know, one thing that struck us here in New Orleans, throughout all of this, is the children. They have been remarkably resilient at the Convention Center, the Superdome. Often, they're the only ones with a smile on their face. And this businessman was convinced that, to return them to normalcy would be the best thing do for these children. And, in fact, they'll all return to school tomorrow, which is really quite remarkable, Charlie.
CHARLES GIBSON
(OC) David Perez, good for you. All right. And, David Muir, thanks. That's quite some story. We'll be right back with a remarkable report in a part of New Orleans where people are holding out, doing what they can to survive. Stay with us.