What are you talking about, the people got in their cars and left. The only thing the locals did is make I-10 westbound in both directions. They didn't do anything to evacuate the poor, the carless and the infirmed-- their base. The flooded out buses speak for themselves.
It is not my inclination to point this out at this time, but the Left unfairly jumped on Bush's throat, so I felt obliged to point out the local failures.
In the end the vast majority of the people got out before the storm arrived and the Greater New Orleans death toll will be as a percentage of population smaller than that of coastal Mississippi.