As to your question of evacuation of large cities:  Wilmington's population has grown tremendously since our last hurricane threat.  I tried to leave on the one five years ago... the traffic on I-40 was backed up to South College Road that I-40 empties out on almost to Carolina Beach.  The worst thing to happen is to be stuck in your car during a hurricane.  People left too late on that one.  There was no where to go.  I dare say that I-40 was backed up from Raleigh to Wilmington bumper to bumper.  With our new population numbers I don't think that we would be able to evacuate at all.  Our biggest problem is getting those new residents aware enough that they do not want to stay for a category 3+, 4 and definitely not a 5 so that they will leave early enough.  The other problem is what I mentioned in my last post... the other states have to leave us a place to go.  NC is mostly coastal and the only place to go is through Raleigh and then to the mountains on I-40 or I-85.  I found out during Hurricane Fran that going 100 miles inland was more dangerous than staying at the coast.  As you in Texas are finding once a city is evacuated, where do you take a whole city and set them up? 

Wrightsville Beach residents never want to leave for any category because their island is closed--literally they raise the draw bridge and they are unable to return home from anywhere from two days to a week.  Same with Carolina Beach.  Our beaches have grown in population as well as in million dollar showcase homes and condos/no more sweet little cottages that withstood many hurricanes.  One of my friends at Wrightsville Beach has a condo in Wilmington that they hold just for their hurricane evacuation.  Don't get me wrong the beaches are well guarded after the hurricanes and only emergency personnel and repair persons are allowed on the islands.  After all is secured a few days afterward then only the residents are allowed back on.  Without proper ID you have to stay put until the islands are opened back up for the public.  Most won't leave and then we hear the cries for help over the radio stations.  There is some law in place that those that do not leave are told that emergency personnel will NOT risk their lives to come get you.  Don't know if it is a federal law or just a NC law.  If you are told to leave and you refuse, you are read your rights that you are totally on your own.  Now human nature does try to help some people.  People here do take care of each other right after wards.  It is a different kind of feeling.  I do want to say to anyone who listens ---- AFTER ONE OF THESE THINGS HITS NOTHING MOVES FOR TWO DAYS---- We go without power, without stores being open, no gas to fill up the car/so that is the 1st thing we do when there is one out there, no restaurants so you cook on your gas grill what is spoiling in your refrigerator, no flushing toilets so you use the water you stored in your tub before it hit, NO TV/NO NINETENDO  which is great time with your kids and again no school for a week because the schools are used as shelters.  We have noisy generators throughout the subdivision but the best sound in the world is the moment those generators start kicking off when the power is restored.  Your ears feel like you just went on vacation.  We have had so many hits that the insurance companies have come up with clever ways to not cover as much in damages as they did years ago.  So we as a community have to rely on FEMA for the small business loans to repair the damages.   Also, when there is a hurricane within a certain mile radius of our area, insurance companies stop writing policies.  In this industry you know what that means.... no closings/ sells or refi's.  So three days before the hit there is no title work to be done.  And then in the case of Fran, it took a month to get title work and most of that was from FEMA loans. 

Until Hurricane Fran, the evacuation routes were only one way roads.  Since then some official in SC decided to open both sides of the interstates to help the traffic get out of town better.  I still don't know if I like that.  What if I lived out of town and had to go to the coast to get my Mama who can not drive... well I did that a few years ago when I lived in SC but I went real early to get her and took her back to SC with me.... you have to plan ahead but then the hurricane hit the Outer Banks so I really didn't have to get her.  But what if I had waited until they had redirected all lanes out.  It is always a what if situation.  
You know we down here discuss this often.... give us a hurricane any day over a tornado or snow.  We have time to prepare for hurricanes.  But now our region is beginning to get the tornadoes and snow... To blame the Bush administration for that is ridiculous.  Global warming started long ago when we were babies and the folks before us used up as much of the resources God gave this earth without putting back.  As far as aid to those stranded, can you imagine trying to restore order in a city where keeping order is hard enough on a good day.  Can you imagine not being able to feed thousands of hungry people?  I thought that they should have let them have free range of the stores because Footlocker's inventory is insured and many people LOST their shoes or had no time to get shoes.  Hand them out!!!!!  Feed them the food that the restaurants had in storage.  It is only going to spoil.  THINK>>> don't shoot people because they are trying to live in a devastated area.  I would have stolen anything to provide for my family in this situation.  The problem is when this happened people were treating the area as if it really mattered that the inventories be protected for the businesses.  

Things that you do not hear.... The boats that the wildlife/sportsman's clubs took into the area to help with the rescue.  Companies like MaryKay Cosmetics, Wal-Mart, Home Depot donating money and items.  The NC Baptist Men are already down there in place to feed people and have a shift schedule for months to keep volunteers down there feeding.  Our Home Depot here sent 50 people to the area to help out in the stores so the employees there can do other things related to the hurricane relief.  Other Home Depot stores do the same.  There is help there but the media only wants you to see what is the saddest of sad.    

Heaven help us when another one comes.  We sit and wait for them around this area.  My hometown had several hits four years in a row.  Then Florida had them all coming to them.  Let's hope that this is not a pattern and all this season will be directed towards the gulf coast.   It's all unpredictable.  But you must be prepared to leave.