The Friday 12Z GFLD model run had moved to SE LA. On Sunday when Gov. Blanco was spreading the lie that "We went to bed Friday thinking it was a FL storm, and woke up to find it a LA storm" I went back and documented in a post refuting evidence. There is a graphic link to the computer model projections at around 4pm that shows almost all of the models converging on SE LA. That was available to authorities early Friday afternoon. Search the Sunday night hurricane thread and you'll see that post, and its 5 links to supporting evidence, posted 2 or 3 times.
That there was a Friday morning track of FL is rather meaningless since it shifted to close to NOLA, with the warning that it could shift even further west, just a few hours later.
Take this scenario - Friday 4 PM was the earliest reasonable prediction of a LA landfall, and at that point they were predicting a strong Cat III or weak Cat IV at landfall. That gives less than 60 hours from the point where the path shifted until the point at which hurricane force weather was being experienced in the area, and about 62 hours to actual landfall. The NOLA EMP required 72 hours for full implementation, as do most cities, and even in that plan their disaster models showed significant loss of life and property.
Public safety is a tough business, and there were (and are) a lot of people working their tails off dealing with this storm. And I guess I'm just tired of all the people out there who always seem to know what should have been done after the fact. Sorry for the rant.