I was watching the weather Channel almost continuously, and I recall differently.
There were nearly five day days during which the projected path included NO. During this time the intensity picked up continuously. During this time the Weather Channel spent hours discussing the danger to NO. During this time the Weather Channel spent hours describing the effects of previous hurricanes in the area.
The storm turned Cat 3 nearly three days before it hit. Remember Cat three? That's the one that city was just barely prepared for.
But recall, the path was known, and the tendency of the storm to intensify was known. Any city and state officials who weren't on the job 24/7 were criminal.
Friday night the top sustained winds were 115 mph, and NO was still on the far west edge of the projected path. They were talking about a possible landfall on the Florida panhandle. They said that some further strengthening was possible, but no one was forecasting it to become a Cat 5 storm overnight, nor that the track would shift substantially farther west.