"I have a friend there waiting...she has to have her son drive her and he's waiting until tomorrow to see what the storm will do."
If it were me, I'd go now too. But, if it'll help you worry less, everytime they've done one of these evacuations out of N.O. everyone does get out in time. It does take 4 times as long to get where you're going but the highways always seem to empty out in time. Twice we've had family leave at the last minute and both times they told us the highways were nearly empty and that they made record time to our house.
We evacuated when Camille was coming up and we didn't know exactly where it was going to hit...but that's the only one I did evacuate for. Lived in NO from 65 to 93...had lots of storms come in, but I don't mess with category 2 or better ones myself...I have to safely be able to evacuate up or get out...