I'm not making excuses for your mayor but this IMO is where they have to show leadership and earn those big bucks. Sometimes, regardless of their decision they get in trouble though. I remember the mayor that evacuated Galveston once. The storm curved instead of directly hitting. People actually got mad at him for erring on the side of caution. Go figure.
This is a point that many 20/20 hindsight warriors are forgetting. Hurricanes are very hard to predict - we can see them on satellite, but their path can defy predictions.
Many areas of the southeast have been instructed to evacuate and the storm either missed the area completely or caused only minimal damage.
Another problem is that authorities are very reluctant to let people back to their homes after they have been evacuated. One guy in Florida got tazered by the police in front of his family last year because he wanted back into his house but the authorities wouldn't let him because they wanted to make sure it was "safe".
These situations are much more complicated that those who just want to play the blame game realize.
I live in Norman OK and our mayor is a Republican.
The mayor of NO doesn't deserve to be mayor IMHO. I heard him this morning and couldn't believe what he was saying -- he didn't seem to get it even this morning that this was going to be a huge hurricane hitting NO.