New Orleans arranged free transporation for the indigent via Amtrak (to Memphis) or by bus (many destinations). Every place evacuees were sent had shelters set up ready for them. Much more together & better organized than three years ago, and just about everyone took advantage of it ~ about 20,000, if I recall correctly, in addition to the much larger number who drove themselves out of town without public assistance. The city, and indeed the entire region, was virtually empty for Gustav.

Some of the destination shelters were less well-prepared than others. There were a lot of very understandable complaints about the one in Shreveport, in particular ~ no indoor plumbing, not even port-a-lets! But most of the other shelters for the publically-evacuated seem to have been set up more than adequately.

Most of the folks who were evacuated by the authorities were unhappy about at least one thing: not being brought back home sooner. The people's unhappiness on this score is understandable, but the gov't stance is understandable, too. They had enough folks returning on their own dime before power was fully restored, etc., and understandably were not going to return the folks whose travel they could control until good and ready.

I feel pretty sure that folks in Galveston and that area were offered similar opportunities, and that those who insisted upon staying did so against very specific, personally-delivered advice, and at their own risk. I know that in coastal South Louisiana, cops and Guardsmen, etc., went door-to-door advising folks to get out, telling them that they might well die of they wouldn't obey ~ and I'm pretty sure that the same procedure was followed a week or so later in coastal Texas. (It's hard to sort out memories of all the reports I watched on TV and to remember which incident went with which storm and in which location.) Unfortunately, some folks just refuse to listen.

Not having experienced a worst-case scenario first-hand ~ as did many of poor folks of New Orleans ~ those Texan diehards were simply not scared enough to accept the free ride they were presumably offered, or to accept the limitations that would come with it: not being free to come back on their own schedule (assuming there would be anything to come back to, and that anyone would be allowed back very soon).