what they need in NO are a whole fleet of amphibious ducks . . .

[OneBlueSky]

like those the Red Sox rode in their victory parade . . . they're good both on land and in the water, and they can hold a whole lot of people at once . . . would help with things like moving all those folks from the SuperDome to military bases, other cities, whatever . . .

[Pobeka]

1. Hot springs Arkansas used to have some for tourists.

This is a good idea -- if you have plenty of access to the water directly from road surfaces, which seems likely.

[tuckessee]

2. A Dunkirk type operation....

....involving private citizens with their fishing boats and river & lake craft.

Actually, this was needed earlier. Once widespraed looting breaks out rescue efforts by unarmed people become touchy.

[MnFats]

3. Wisconsin Dells! You could get 'em there...

...might take a long time to get 'em to NOLA, though...or maybe you could just run them into a C-130 and take off.

[Scurrilous]

4. They could use some airboats too...

...I think they would come in handy for search and rescue in flooded areas.

[lpbk2713]

5. Oddly enough New Orleans is where the Higgins boats were made in WW II

And there is one on display in the D-Day museum on Magazine Street


http://www.higginsboat.org/html/museum.html

[onager]

6. And from the same era, some "Alligators..."

...which were originally invented for just this purpose. I remember reading (somewhere) that Donald Roebling didn't particularly want his vehicles used by the military. WWII made that a moot point:

A major contribution to the war effort came from a prominent Clearwater citizen. As described in Michael Sanders’ "Clearwater, A Pictorial History," after the 1926 hurricane left hundreds stranded and some dead in the Everglades, Donald Roebling of Harbor Oaks (Florida)—whose grandfather, Washington A. Roebling, built the Brooklyn Bridge—began work on the “Roebling Alligator.”

Designed as an amphibious rescue vehicle, the onset of war saw the Roebling Alligator converted to an amphibious tank that could travel easily over both water and land. With a land speed in excess of 25 miles per hour, Alligators took many visiting dignitaries and local Boy Scouts and Sea Scouts through nearby waters and mangrove swamps.

This amphibious tank, manufactured in Lakeland, would later be credited with helping to win the war in the Pacific. The U.S. Navy awarded Roebling a Certificate of Achievement for “exceptional accomplishment on behalf of the United States Navy and of meritorious contribution to the National War effort.”

In 1948, President Harry S Truman gave Roebling the Medal of Merit “for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service to the United States.... Mr. Roebling conceived, developed, and perfected an amphibian vehicle capable of traversing both land and water, presented it to the government of the United States and released it for manufacture without compensation.”