"...I HEARD Max Mayfield in an interview saying he'd called the mayor and basically begged him."
I was streaming WWL, and saw the Mayor say this himself.
Well, except for the "begging" part. ;o)
The Mayor was pleading for the people to evacuate, while
the attorneys were checking the legalities of a mandatory
evacuation order.
Wussie buncha 'Rats...
see #103 this thread.
The Governor and the head of any political unit in LA has the statutory authority to order an evacuation, as per the NOLA city website Emergency Plan.
More to the point, the city of New Orleans emergency Plan says the MAYOR is responsible for deciding and ordering an evacuation. The word "order" implies mandatory compliance; that's why it's called an "evacuation order" instead of "evacuation advisory," or "recommendation," or "suggestion," or "request."
The legality issue is either completely bogus, or else the Mayor wasn't even following his own administraton's Emergency Plan as a CAT 5 hurricane bore down on the city. In either case, he's an incompetent, malfeseant moron who is responsible for getting people killed.