I'm seriously doubting that story about the "72-year-old French meteorologist" that stayed behind...sounds like an urban legend to me. If someone did stay behind, they're shark food now.
It just seems unlikely. The Air Force could have ordered him off, and surely if he somehow convinced them otherwise, the folks who did evacuate to Hawaii would have said something to the media about the lone holdout.
It would be too good a story for the media to ignore. They eat this kind of drama up.