In the confusion and panic of the exodus, many separated families did not know whether loved ones were alive or dead, nor where they were.

There were heartbreaking scenes at one New Orleans hospital, where frantic new mothers begged rescuers to take their children to safety.

“These mothers were just giving my medics their little day-old babies,” said Richard Zuschlag, head of the local ambulance service.

“They were looking at us with fear and horror on their faces. We would put four of them in an incubator and just fly them out.

“They’re scattered all over the country now. We couldn’t keep track of where everyone was going.”

The babies wore tiny identification tags. With luck, despite the horror of their unnatural separation, they will eventually be reunited with their mothers but nobody knows when or how.

In America’s largest displacement of people since the civil war, New Orleans was fast becoming a ghost town while people all over America volunteered help.

Lois Williamson offered to put up a family for nothing in her three-bedroom home in Massachusetts, 1,500 miles from the disaster zone. “You don’t have a hard time climbing into bed at night when you have cosy sheets and your tummies are full and you are not thirsty,” she said. “These people are parched. They need our help.”

After days of incomprehensible delays from state and federal authorities, the citizenry of America was mobilising.

Serena Howard from Arkansas started a website called OpenYourHome.com last week which she thought would attract a few local responses. Since Wednesday 1,300 families have contacted her offering their homes, churches and office buildings. Many say they will pay for the cost of refugees’ transport to their area and help them to find jobs.

Officials from states as far away as Utah, Wyoming, Michigan and West Virginia have started preparing their own military barracks, empty shopping malls and civic centres for refugees.

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