1. They waited TOO LONG to mandate evacuation.
2. They did NOTHING to assist the evacuation.
3. However many hours it took the other folks to "get out", they GOT OUT!
4. Four hours would have been enough to get to higher ground -- if the evacuation started soon enough.
5. For the initial evacuation, you don't force any able bodied folks to go....but you take the old, feeble, sick, and willing.
6. Trapped in the open perhaps, but above the water, and if they went in the right direction -- away from the full force of the wind.
It's as simple as this......no plan is perfect.
No implementation is perfect, and fully succesful...
But these bastards delayed too long, and then did NOTHING right.
Semper Fi
I would add just one thing to your simple plan.
Make all roads one way going out of town. We have pictures of the bottlenecks on the outbound lanes of I10 while a few cars were still driving into N O's.