The amazing bus that never made it to Katrina

updated 12:39 a.m. ET Aug. 25, 2006

BLUFFTON, S.C. - At 12:33 in the morning on Aug. 31, 2005, John Giljam, inventor and fabricator of the world's first unsinkable bus, tapped out an urgent e-mail to his customers across the United States.

Hurricane Katrina had erased much of Mississippi's coastline, a towering storm surge had overwhelmed the levees of New Orleans, and desperate city dwellers had scurried to their roofs to keep above the floodwaters.

A day earlier, Giljam had "placed a call to FEMA to see if our Hydra Terras can be used in time to save lives," he wrote. "I am awaiting a reply ... I ask you all to consider offering your vehicles and operators to save those in New Orleans if the call comes in that our machines could make a difference."

Surely, Giljam reasoned, the Federal Emergency Management Agency would recognize that his greatest invention, the amphibious Hydra Terra, was the answer to everyone's prayers.

Made for the long haul
His floating bus, 40 feet long by 8.5 feet wide, could not only do 75 mph on a highway, it did 7 knots on the water. As a tour bus, it accommodated 49 passengers and two crewmembers; as a rescue vehicle, it could haul as much as five tons of emergency supplies.

Giljam could rig the Hydra Terra to go a week without refueling by strapping extra drums of diesel to the deck, with no fear of listing or capsizing. The engine sat in the bottom and center of the vehicle for stability, and the aluminum-plated hull, filled with flotation foam, made the thing unsinkable.

Also, with a 300-horsepower engine and a propeller capable of generating as much thrust as a tugboat, the Hydra Terra could shove aside anything in its path: floating cars, trees, even trucks.

And it wouldn't cost taxpayers anything.

As he drifted off to sleep, Giljam envisioned Hydra Terras sailing about New Orleans, cruising up to people on rooftops and retrieving them like kids waiting at a bus stop — at a fraction of what it cost the U.S. Coast Guard to fly helicopter sorties.

The thought made him smile.

Ready to roll
The first reply came that same morning, at 7:48 a.m. — an electronic missive from Hubert Baxley, a customer and water-tour operator in Myrtle Beach, S.C., who wrote, "We will be on standby and ready to help out."

Pledges of assistance soon arrived from other Hydra Terra owners as far-flung as Providence, R.I., Boston, San Diego, Miami, Albany, N.Y., Santa Barbara, Calif., and Ponderay, Idaho.

Robert Fox, a lake-tour operator in Ponderay, had even assembled a crew of volunteers and was prepping for the haul to New Orleans.

"The Delirious Duck," Fox asserted boldly, "is available."

There was but one vexing circumstance: Neither Giljam, nor his wife, Julie, who'd been feverishly working the phones, had made contact with anyone in the rescue business, let alone convince them that the Hydra Terra was the way to go.

‘We can't authorize that’
Their misfortune began with an unattended call to the sheriff's office in New Orleans. (Understandably, the sheriffs had already bailed.) Undeterred, they rang FEMA's general number in Washington, D.C. — and were promptly referred to the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Emergency Preparedness.

That turned out to be a dead end, too. "I'm sorry, we can't authorize that," the attendant told them. "Try our field office in Louisiana."

The field officer in Baton Rouge, a bit harried, suggested they contact logistics at the Emergency Management Services office. Why? "We're not in a position to authorize this."

Other Samaritans might have quit right there; Giljam, who'd been told countless times that he'd never get a bus to float, was just getting started.

Naturally, with New Orleans in chaos, it took time to get Emergency Management Services on the line. Once Giljam heard "Hello?" he launched into his pitch for his floating bus.

After a pause, the voice said, "Sir?"

"Yes?"

"No one here can authorize that."

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