You clearly don't get it. No other location is located in a bowl 8' below sea level. Completely different situation from evacuations in other parts of the country. The storm surge is where massive death occurs, and this is the only place in the US where such Bangladesh-type deaths could occur on a massive scale. There is a good chance that by this time tomorrow nights we will have had more deaths than any disaster in US history. A completely preventable WTC, predicted for decades, yet the city and state ended up being far too unprepared.
A person exposed to 100 mph winds is going to just as dead as one underwater. Many of the areas you mentioned are going to suffer from wind damage and collapsed buildings themselves.
The bottom line is that evacuations are not as simple as many in this thread think they are. Remember, Rudy didn't evacuate NY, he just calmed them down.
This is once in a century type storm. If a storm like this had ever hit New Orleans before then it wouldn't still be there. This is just like the democrats saying that defending America from highjacked plane attacks should have been the first thing that Bush should have done. We know how ludicrous that sounds when we hear it, but many are doing that same thing tonight.
Let us pray you are wrong. This is my fear also.
There are quite literally thousands of people right now along this coast that fear they may die later today. The death toll has the potential of being 10 WTC attacks. This could make the Iraq War 'death toll' look very minor in comparison. Emergency response to the area could quite literally save thousands of lives. They will need hundreds of volunteers. There will be thousands of emergency evacs needed. As usual, flooding will be the main problem.