You also need to consider that once the refugees from the two cesspits got 3 squares and a shower, some were able to contact relatives and make arrangements to get as far away from a government sponsored anything as possible.
For mass evacuations you have to estimate large. I suspect some of the municipalities jumped the gun and took a stand-by request as a green light to proceed. To give Blank-o one tiny shred of support, I think there was someone with school buses turned back at the city limits and they whined, "we were told to come up with an inventory of what we had and a list of drivers." Somehow that morphed into an execute order and they showed up with an unairconditioned bus w/o rest room for a long-haul trip.
Finally, don't forget that past disasters gave the lesson that money will rain down from the heavens and that everything is reimbursable. I can't attribute the source but someone told me that when FPL was asked why they didn't do a better job of keeping the trees trimmed along the power line routes they said "why when FEMA will pay us to do it after a storm?" So no wonder your guys were so quick to spend 100K.
I think you're right on most or all counts. I just hate the waste, the ripping-off "because we can" attitude, and the lack of organization. I hate thinking my state would be part of any of that. I hate thinking my state would jump the gun before they knew we actually had X number of people coming here - not just "maybe" but actually coming here.
OTOH, evacuees refused to go to the cruise ships that were offered because they didn't want to move again and be one more step away from finding loved ones. So I understand even the best laid plans can go awry. (Plus, I wanted to help, so I'm personally bummed that we don't get to house some evacuees here. But if they have found loved ones and places to stay that are closer to home, I'm certainly happy for them.)