There'd have been lots of traffic at the last minute regardless. I'm all the way across the country and have never heard the mayor or governor speak and I've known for a couple days a bad storm was coming and they should get out.
What I don't understand is why they aren't using all lanes to head out of town, and why in one shot, they appear to be congesting into only one or two lanes of a 10 lane freeway.
The folks on I-10 going out of NO know their contraflow rules. Those in the left lane are waiting to get on the proper highway for them. Once they are there, they will travel in all lanes on the freeway.