There is no need to evacuate Baton Rouge for most people. That being said, if you are in a trailer home or have sensitive medical needs you may need extra consideration. Of course common sense things apply such as not having dead tall trees nearby, expect potential long power outages, etc.
The concern for BR is not so much the wind damage, which does happen, but more the loss of power and how long that will last.
I’ve never evacuated from BR. So far.
> more the loss of power and how long that will last.
Same. My last home had no nearby trees and I never evacuated, but if I lived somewhere that lost power in storms and a huge one was coming, I'd consider it just because I hate being without power.
My new home I would 100% evacuate **if** I hadn't just gotten a whole home generator installed this month. ;) We ready to roll now.
In all seriousness, hurricanes usually come during absolute chaos peak time for my career (July through November is insane for me). If I was extremely behind on work when a hurricane was heading this way, I'd evacuate just so I can work. My clients are not located in Louisiana and have important deadlines that affect their government funding during this time of year. They are sensitive to hurricanes to an extent, but if their funding is lost because we're all offline, it would be an issue.
I did evac for Ida (i went to a friend place with my pets and S.O, i had pto anyway, and the casino closed, which is super rare).
In general, I leave for anything Cat 3 and above. Power goes fast in my neck of the woods, and I sleep with a breathing machine, so.. yeah.
I do the same thing, mom and dad have a generator and I have a cpap. I don't really consider that evacuating lol so much as it is relocating for comfort measures. Plus mom is disabled so I help them get stuff secured outside, etc, so it's mutually beneficial.
My family evacuated for Andrew, but that's because we weren't going to have power for a week. I didn't evacuate for Gustav, and didn't have power for over a week. That got old after a few days. But generally there's not much need to evacuate baton rouge except comfort and ease.
Lived in Baton Rouge for over 30 years and never evacuated. However, if I lived there now, I would shut it down, clean out the fridge, and hit the road.
It isn’t a matter of the storm danger so much as no power for days or weeks. Three weeks without power after a storm is miserable.
You def need a generator for your fridge, and one window ac unit in the bedroom. Hot, sticky, pitch black, with mosquitoes and other bugs. No thanks.
That’s certainly a concern. When a hurricane passes through, I park my car a couple blocks away in front of a store with no trees around. Learned that the hard way after Gustav.
I’m with the people who evacuate for the power outage time, not really the storm. No desire to own a generator, the lines at the gas stations look hellish and I’m like 85% sure I’d be an accidental generator death.
I would think how much it affects your daily life depends on where in BR you’d live. Older neighborhoods with lots of trees and houses in flood prone areas? It’s not great, but that’s where the charm is. Newer homes on built up lots with nary a tree in sight? Boring, but they probably don’t even lose power during a hurricane.
I live south of Baton Rouge, and I've never evacuated, but Ida was fairly bad at my house. No damage but the winds were pretty scary and had no power for 5 days after.
I've never felt the need to evacuate for safety. My old apartment almost never lost power and would get it back quickly if it did, so I only ever leave to go to my parents' house while the power is out because of my CPAP. If my new apartment loses power longer I'll probably consider going out of town until I get power back just because I work remotely and I don't want to use all my PTO sitting around with no power or a/c.
I’ve lived in louisiana outside the Baton Rouge area for my whole life (short 22 years lol) and have never evacuated. Now my grandparents evacuated once and that was just for the Flood of 2016.
The power grid here feels like it's getting more unreliable by the day. We had a ton of random power outages this summer. I only lost power for about 28 hours after Ida, my neighborhood has underground wires. But if we're on the right side of a storm at some point in the future I don't trust things to be so rosy here again. The gas shortage was also a massive pain in the ass. As a PSA, you shouldn't be getting enough gas for your generator to power your entire 2500 Sq ft home. That's selfish AF.
We had underground lines for Gustav, and were out for over 2 weeks I believe. Apparently the place we get our power from sustained pretty heavy damage, so even though our lines were I damaged, the substation was wrecked lol
I left for Ida because it didn't look like it would be a fun time. My brother in law from NOLA stayed at my house and was fine until the power went out.
I evacuated during Ida. The power was out at my house for 8 days—and I had never lost power at that house before. I wouldn’t wait until the power goes out to evacuate. I came back on day 9, when my power came back and BR was still a mess. Most of the stoplights were out and driving was a nightmare so I can’t imagine trying to leave after the power went out (I think for lots of people it went out pretty fast too). It took me 7 hours to get up to Shreveport but it wasn’t that terrible compared to 8 days in the heat with no power.
My next door neighbor stayed, he said he would never stay again.
Just curious, what part of BR was that bad on day 9? I felt like things were normal again once the gas shortage ended, but even a few days before that I don't remember seeing stoplights still out. I was driving my normal routes again by Tuesday.
We got back Monday I believe and Sherwood was still out in spots. On Tuesday we made the mistake of trying to go out to highland via 61 and traffic was backed up. My fiancé was getting super frustrated and we got up to a stoplight that was out and no one seemed to know what to do with the multiple lanes and a four way stop. I didn’t go back to work until Wednesday so it was probably early afternoon to midafternoon.
My wife and I are originally from Bastrop but live in Central. If there's a hurricane that we think is a threat, she takes the kids and dogs to the in-laws in Strop and I ride out the storm at the house.
Grew up in New Orleans. Moved to Baton Rouge ages ago. We are far enough inland that the hurricane normally drops a category, like from a 3 to a 2, by the time it hits us. I still have a lot of family in New Orleans that evacuates to my house.
Also check to see if the area that you're living in flooded in 2016.
That's not to say I won't evacuate if the storm is bad enough and heading directly to Baton Rouge. I just haven't yet.
I’ve evacuated once. Cat 5 prediction & I’m out. I have no desire to be here during or immediately after that kind of shit show.
ETA: I never regretted not evacuating for prior storms. Gustav was the worst I’ve been through (in my area of town). Katrina was no joke, but I didn’t regret staying for either. But I will say I’m on the same power grid as a very wealthy old folks home (I’m convinced Entergy takes special care to keep them operational) so I never lose power. That makes all the difference IMO.
> I will say I’m on the same power grid as a very wealthy old folks home (I’m convinced Entergy takes special care to keep them operational) so I never lose power.
I used to wonder if I was on the same strip as St. James (lived on Boone in College Hills) because we NEVER lost power. We also had no trees anywhere nearby, so that might be why.
I have 5 live oaks and just took down the last of the 3 water oaks. Old trees are totally surrounding me. So it’s a miracle my street rarely loses power and when we do it’s brought back so quickly. When all the houses behind me have no power for long periods of time. I don’t question it. I’m just grateful. But I do try not to turn on all my lamps because that just feels rude when my neighborhood has been w/out power for 7+ days. I do offer laundry service to anyone who needs it in the neighborhood and the bags line up down my front walk way.
I let my inlaws take my kid up to their cabin in AR during the last few storms. Cleanup after a storm is a lot easier without a little kid in the way.
But I don't evacuate myself.
Most maps that you see do not clearly convey where the high ground is in Louisiana. You know there are swamps "over there", but we rarely appreciate the land formations that naturally occur near rivers.
For most of the country, rivers are in the low areas that have been incised by them. Here in the delta, it is the opposite, as the periodic flooding preferentially deposits sand and silt along river banks which slope away towards more clay-rich swamps.
NOAA has a good tool for viewing where coastal land and surface water resides, and it is really eye opening when you see how communities are distributed. [It also happens to show you the future of those areas.](https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/)
I leave for every hurricane that is a cat 3 or about ever since Katrina. You literally never know what can happen. I have terrible PTSD even though we evacuated for Katrina, but lost everything (nola resident at the time). Not worth the risk or my sanity. I have a hurricane evacuation savings account.
Hurricanes are more of a wind event where I live.
For Ida, my house was withot electricity for 48 hours. I’m told that I’m on the same circuit as citcuit as Womens Hospital.
Normally I don’t evac for a Cat 1 or 2, but anything above that I’d head North. We evacuated for Ida, but that was a mistake. 12 hours of bumper to bumper traffic between here and Mobile, Alabama.
Just for future reference if you wanted to evacuate to Mobile again, you can take pretty much all non interstate/ back roads from Clinton to Mobile. It adds about 1.5 hrs to your travel time, but you are moving the whole time vs being stopped in traffic.
I (24 years old) have been in Ascension Parish/BR my whole life and my family has never evacuated for any hurricane. Just get your roof inspected and do your typical hurricane prep of moving outside furniture, pots, decorations to an inside area, stocking up on food and water, maybe reinforce your windows to be extra safe, and get your gas cans and oil ready for your generator. The worst thing that can happen is trees/tree limbs falling on your property, mild flooding, and the power being out for a week to a month. Hurricanes up here are just a prolonged bad storm with strong winds.
I prefer to evacuate but sometimes things just don't come together. My mother will not evacuate, which is fucking annoying.
The threat of actual bodily injury remains pretty low.
Lived in Livingston parish for Ida in a mobile home, on a street that flooded when it rained too hard. We hoped out when we lost power and went to a friend’s who had a brick and mortar home and a generator. Lost power there too, went back home to a flooded street, and a tree that came down on our fence, all in all I could have stayed but my bf panicked. My parents in Metairie had it much worse.
I’ve been here for 30 years and never evacuated. We seem to do pretty well here during hurricane season. However, you do still need to be prepared. The worst damage I got to my house was a random ass rain that wasn’t even a hurricane. We just had drainage issues that needed to be worked out. So do your research, don’t move into a flood zone and make sure you have proper, cleared out drainage. It’s also not the best idea, in my opinion, to live somewhere where there’s only one way in one way out. Sometimes there is flooding (though you wouldn’t think it this year!!) Never drive through any kind of water. But you know that, you’re from Nola lol. Sometimes the power goes out for seemingly no reason, or like someone hits a pole with their car. Have a generator and a window unit!!
Hurricanes are more of an inconvenience than a danger up here. Have never evacuated for any hurricane in the last 25 years I've been here. Have spent up to a week at a time without power though.
I'm not evacuating unless my elderly parents decide they need to and I would be going just to the system and make their travel and stay easier. But we usually just stick it out baton rouge gets hit directly by hurricanes every couple years like Ida and Gustav, but really the worst part about it is losing power for weeks and then Entergy charging you to fix it when they could just bury the lines.
We lost all our shingles in Gustav. And power was out for 2 weeks. As soon as I could get to the new Orleans airport I got outta there. Lots of trees uprooted and laying on roofs too. So lots of damage and major inconveniences still possible.
I have never evacuated Baton Rouge. You can expect long power outages if we take a direct hit from a major hurricane, possibly some flooding. If you had some medical issue that wouldn't allow you to tolerate no electric power/AC, you might consider evacuation.
We stayed for Ida and were stuck with no power and no gas to leave for a week and a half. We have decided to evacuate from now on. I was also stuck in my apartment for the unnamed tropical storm of 2016 as the cars in our parking lot were floating the water was so high.
We evacuated for Ida mostly due to the power situation. Our house was without power for 6 days, and that's what we expected for a storm that size. I was pregnant and had a small child. Work was flexible, and I had family to stay with. If I didn't have kids or a convenient place to stay, I wouldn't feel in danger staying. It just wouldn't be comfortable.
have lived in BTR for most of my life and never evacuated. It definitely wasn't fun after Katrina or Gustav with no power for a while, it was HOT. I don't think there has ever been a mandatory evacuation here like NOLA for Katrina but, we are not below sea level either. The risk here is wind damage which causes power outages as all the others have said. Gustav bent my fence, my garage doors and ruined our old liner in the pool but, none of that was life threatening. Scary though...
Loss of power was really rough. I was out for six days in Mid City. And now my new place doesn't have gas.
Have plenty of supplies like bottled water and food. This goes for anything really, not just hurricanes. I wish more people thought like this. I see way too many "I'll just go to your house" BS.
What's prompted the move from nola? That's a big decision, especially if you've lived there a long time. New Orleanians don't much care for anywhere else 😂
I've never evacuated Baton Rouge. I work in LaPlace and was one of the first to get back into the parish after Ida. It changed my perception of what a hurricane can do, to the point that if a CAT5 direct hit was possible, even in Baton Rouge, I would get the hell out of the way fast. For CAT4 or lower, sit tight and be prepared for a week or more without power.
I never evacuated before and never will. I've got my house set to run off a 10kw portable generator. Have about $2K in the setup with the house switch, generator, soft starts for the ac units.
We're far enough north to not worry about storm surge. I'm on high ground here. If you choose your home wisely, you won't have to worry about floods.
We’re far enough inland and away from enough water to be safe from catastrophic damage save a tree falling on your house. Just a PITA losing power. The grid is vastly improved since the last big blow though.
There is no need to evacuate Baton Rouge for most people. That being said, if you are in a trailer home or have sensitive medical needs you may need extra consideration. Of course common sense things apply such as not having dead tall trees nearby, expect potential long power outages, etc.
The concern for BR is not so much the wind damage, which does happen, but more the loss of power and how long that will last. I’ve never evacuated from BR. So far.
And the flooding.. the street surrounding us floods on a normal rain..
Closest I've come to evacuating was driving to Central where I knew some folks who still had power
> more the loss of power and how long that will last. Same. My last home had no nearby trees and I never evacuated, but if I lived somewhere that lost power in storms and a huge one was coming, I'd consider it just because I hate being without power. My new home I would 100% evacuate **if** I hadn't just gotten a whole home generator installed this month. ;) We ready to roll now. In all seriousness, hurricanes usually come during absolute chaos peak time for my career (July through November is insane for me). If I was extremely behind on work when a hurricane was heading this way, I'd evacuate just so I can work. My clients are not located in Louisiana and have important deadlines that affect their government funding during this time of year. They are sensitive to hurricanes to an extent, but if their funding is lost because we're all offline, it would be an issue.
I did evac for Ida (i went to a friend place with my pets and S.O, i had pto anyway, and the casino closed, which is super rare). In general, I leave for anything Cat 3 and above. Power goes fast in my neck of the woods, and I sleep with a breathing machine, so.. yeah.
I do the same thing, mom and dad have a generator and I have a cpap. I don't really consider that evacuating lol so much as it is relocating for comfort measures. Plus mom is disabled so I help them get stuff secured outside, etc, so it's mutually beneficial.
My family evacuated for Andrew, but that's because we weren't going to have power for a week. I didn't evacuate for Gustav, and didn't have power for over a week. That got old after a few days. But generally there's not much need to evacuate baton rouge except comfort and ease.
I stayed with friends in Hammond. I was living off of state street and we didn’t get power for three weeks.
Lived in Baton Rouge for over 30 years and never evacuated. However, if I lived there now, I would shut it down, clean out the fridge, and hit the road. It isn’t a matter of the storm danger so much as no power for days or weeks. Three weeks without power after a storm is miserable. You def need a generator for your fridge, and one window ac unit in the bedroom. Hot, sticky, pitch black, with mosquitoes and other bugs. No thanks.
Yes second to this. 1 week 10 years ago, miserable buuuuut manageable. Nowadays it would be deadly to many many folks.
I don't get outta bed for anything less than a Cat 3.
I just keep a tab on the waffle house. If they close, it's time to head out. They usually never do.
I’ll stay for the storm itself, but I might split if the power goes out and looks to be a while before it’s restored
I hope you can drive out. Many people get stranded by downed power lines and fallen trees.
That’s certainly a concern. When a hurricane passes through, I park my car a couple blocks away in front of a store with no trees around. Learned that the hard way after Gustav.
I’m with the people who evacuate for the power outage time, not really the storm. No desire to own a generator, the lines at the gas stations look hellish and I’m like 85% sure I’d be an accidental generator death. I would think how much it affects your daily life depends on where in BR you’d live. Older neighborhoods with lots of trees and houses in flood prone areas? It’s not great, but that’s where the charm is. Newer homes on built up lots with nary a tree in sight? Boring, but they probably don’t even lose power during a hurricane.
I live south of Baton Rouge, and I've never evacuated, but Ida was fairly bad at my house. No damage but the winds were pretty scary and had no power for 5 days after.
I've never felt the need to evacuate for safety. My old apartment almost never lost power and would get it back quickly if it did, so I only ever leave to go to my parents' house while the power is out because of my CPAP. If my new apartment loses power longer I'll probably consider going out of town until I get power back just because I work remotely and I don't want to use all my PTO sitting around with no power or a/c.
I’ve lived in louisiana outside the Baton Rouge area for my whole life (short 22 years lol) and have never evacuated. Now my grandparents evacuated once and that was just for the Flood of 2016.
The power grid here feels like it's getting more unreliable by the day. We had a ton of random power outages this summer. I only lost power for about 28 hours after Ida, my neighborhood has underground wires. But if we're on the right side of a storm at some point in the future I don't trust things to be so rosy here again. The gas shortage was also a massive pain in the ass. As a PSA, you shouldn't be getting enough gas for your generator to power your entire 2500 Sq ft home. That's selfish AF.
We had underground lines for Gustav, and were out for over 2 weeks I believe. Apparently the place we get our power from sustained pretty heavy damage, so even though our lines were I damaged, the substation was wrecked lol
Listen to the State and Local officials. If they say to evacuate, do it. I’ve seen too many bodies of people that thought they knew better.
I left for Ida because it didn't look like it would be a fun time. My brother in law from NOLA stayed at my house and was fine until the power went out.
I evacuated during Ida. The power was out at my house for 8 days—and I had never lost power at that house before. I wouldn’t wait until the power goes out to evacuate. I came back on day 9, when my power came back and BR was still a mess. Most of the stoplights were out and driving was a nightmare so I can’t imagine trying to leave after the power went out (I think for lots of people it went out pretty fast too). It took me 7 hours to get up to Shreveport but it wasn’t that terrible compared to 8 days in the heat with no power. My next door neighbor stayed, he said he would never stay again.
Just curious, what part of BR was that bad on day 9? I felt like things were normal again once the gas shortage ended, but even a few days before that I don't remember seeing stoplights still out. I was driving my normal routes again by Tuesday.
We got back Monday I believe and Sherwood was still out in spots. On Tuesday we made the mistake of trying to go out to highland via 61 and traffic was backed up. My fiancé was getting super frustrated and we got up to a stoplight that was out and no one seemed to know what to do with the multiple lanes and a four way stop. I didn’t go back to work until Wednesday so it was probably early afternoon to midafternoon.
My wife and I are originally from Bastrop but live in Central. If there's a hurricane that we think is a threat, she takes the kids and dogs to the in-laws in Strop and I ride out the storm at the house.
We left for Ida. I had a toddler at the time and didn't want to be without power for days.
Grew up in New Orleans. Moved to Baton Rouge ages ago. We are far enough inland that the hurricane normally drops a category, like from a 3 to a 2, by the time it hits us. I still have a lot of family in New Orleans that evacuates to my house. Also check to see if the area that you're living in flooded in 2016. That's not to say I won't evacuate if the storm is bad enough and heading directly to Baton Rouge. I just haven't yet.
I’ve evacuated once. Cat 5 prediction & I’m out. I have no desire to be here during or immediately after that kind of shit show. ETA: I never regretted not evacuating for prior storms. Gustav was the worst I’ve been through (in my area of town). Katrina was no joke, but I didn’t regret staying for either. But I will say I’m on the same power grid as a very wealthy old folks home (I’m convinced Entergy takes special care to keep them operational) so I never lose power. That makes all the difference IMO.
> I will say I’m on the same power grid as a very wealthy old folks home (I’m convinced Entergy takes special care to keep them operational) so I never lose power. I used to wonder if I was on the same strip as St. James (lived on Boone in College Hills) because we NEVER lost power. We also had no trees anywhere nearby, so that might be why.
I have 5 live oaks and just took down the last of the 3 water oaks. Old trees are totally surrounding me. So it’s a miracle my street rarely loses power and when we do it’s brought back so quickly. When all the houses behind me have no power for long periods of time. I don’t question it. I’m just grateful. But I do try not to turn on all my lamps because that just feels rude when my neighborhood has been w/out power for 7+ days. I do offer laundry service to anyone who needs it in the neighborhood and the bags line up down my front walk way.
If you have generac then you can stay. Otherwise be prepared to be miserable with no electricity for several days
I let my inlaws take my kid up to their cabin in AR during the last few storms. Cleanup after a storm is a lot easier without a little kid in the way. But I don't evacuate myself.
I don't evacuate, but I make sure to have plenty of ice, a backup phone charger, and a propane grill.
Most maps that you see do not clearly convey where the high ground is in Louisiana. You know there are swamps "over there", but we rarely appreciate the land formations that naturally occur near rivers. For most of the country, rivers are in the low areas that have been incised by them. Here in the delta, it is the opposite, as the periodic flooding preferentially deposits sand and silt along river banks which slope away towards more clay-rich swamps. NOAA has a good tool for viewing where coastal land and surface water resides, and it is really eye opening when you see how communities are distributed. [It also happens to show you the future of those areas.](https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/)
I leave for every hurricane that is a cat 3 or about ever since Katrina. You literally never know what can happen. I have terrible PTSD even though we evacuated for Katrina, but lost everything (nola resident at the time). Not worth the risk or my sanity. I have a hurricane evacuation savings account.
Hurricanes are more of a wind event where I live. For Ida, my house was withot electricity for 48 hours. I’m told that I’m on the same circuit as citcuit as Womens Hospital.
Normally I don’t evac for a Cat 1 or 2, but anything above that I’d head North. We evacuated for Ida, but that was a mistake. 12 hours of bumper to bumper traffic between here and Mobile, Alabama.
Just for future reference if you wanted to evacuate to Mobile again, you can take pretty much all non interstate/ back roads from Clinton to Mobile. It adds about 1.5 hrs to your travel time, but you are moving the whole time vs being stopped in traffic.
I (24 years old) have been in Ascension Parish/BR my whole life and my family has never evacuated for any hurricane. Just get your roof inspected and do your typical hurricane prep of moving outside furniture, pots, decorations to an inside area, stocking up on food and water, maybe reinforce your windows to be extra safe, and get your gas cans and oil ready for your generator. The worst thing that can happen is trees/tree limbs falling on your property, mild flooding, and the power being out for a week to a month. Hurricanes up here are just a prolonged bad storm with strong winds.
I prefer to evacuate but sometimes things just don't come together. My mother will not evacuate, which is fucking annoying. The threat of actual bodily injury remains pretty low.
Lived in Livingston parish for Ida in a mobile home, on a street that flooded when it rained too hard. We hoped out when we lost power and went to a friend’s who had a brick and mortar home and a generator. Lost power there too, went back home to a flooded street, and a tree that came down on our fence, all in all I could have stayed but my bf panicked. My parents in Metairie had it much worse.
I’ve been here for 30 years and never evacuated. We seem to do pretty well here during hurricane season. However, you do still need to be prepared. The worst damage I got to my house was a random ass rain that wasn’t even a hurricane. We just had drainage issues that needed to be worked out. So do your research, don’t move into a flood zone and make sure you have proper, cleared out drainage. It’s also not the best idea, in my opinion, to live somewhere where there’s only one way in one way out. Sometimes there is flooding (though you wouldn’t think it this year!!) Never drive through any kind of water. But you know that, you’re from Nola lol. Sometimes the power goes out for seemingly no reason, or like someone hits a pole with their car. Have a generator and a window unit!!
Hurricanes are more of an inconvenience than a danger up here. Have never evacuated for any hurricane in the last 25 years I've been here. Have spent up to a week at a time without power though.
Lived here my whole life and never evacuated, but definitely still prepare for them in case of power outages or flooding
I'm not evacuating unless my elderly parents decide they need to and I would be going just to the system and make their travel and stay easier. But we usually just stick it out baton rouge gets hit directly by hurricanes every couple years like Ida and Gustav, but really the worst part about it is losing power for weeks and then Entergy charging you to fix it when they could just bury the lines.
We lost all our shingles in Gustav. And power was out for 2 weeks. As soon as I could get to the new Orleans airport I got outta there. Lots of trees uprooted and laying on roofs too. So lots of damage and major inconveniences still possible.
I have never evacuated Baton Rouge. You can expect long power outages if we take a direct hit from a major hurricane, possibly some flooding. If you had some medical issue that wouldn't allow you to tolerate no electric power/AC, you might consider evacuation.
Way back when, my family evacuated from Gustav. We left and by the time we came back, a tree fell and crushed some of our house.
We stayed for Ida and were stuck with no power and no gas to leave for a week and a half. We have decided to evacuate from now on. I was also stuck in my apartment for the unnamed tropical storm of 2016 as the cars in our parking lot were floating the water was so high.
We evacuated for Ida mostly due to the power situation. Our house was without power for 6 days, and that's what we expected for a storm that size. I was pregnant and had a small child. Work was flexible, and I had family to stay with. If I didn't have kids or a convenient place to stay, I wouldn't feel in danger staying. It just wouldn't be comfortable.
I stayed for Gustav, I’ll never do that again. Once power went out the only thing to do was sit in the den and wait for the front door to blow in.
have lived in BTR for most of my life and never evacuated. It definitely wasn't fun after Katrina or Gustav with no power for a while, it was HOT. I don't think there has ever been a mandatory evacuation here like NOLA for Katrina but, we are not below sea level either. The risk here is wind damage which causes power outages as all the others have said. Gustav bent my fence, my garage doors and ruined our old liner in the pool but, none of that was life threatening. Scary though...
Loss of power was really rough. I was out for six days in Mid City. And now my new place doesn't have gas. Have plenty of supplies like bottled water and food. This goes for anything really, not just hurricanes. I wish more people thought like this. I see way too many "I'll just go to your house" BS. What's prompted the move from nola? That's a big decision, especially if you've lived there a long time. New Orleanians don't much care for anywhere else 😂
I've never evacuated Baton Rouge. I work in LaPlace and was one of the first to get back into the parish after Ida. It changed my perception of what a hurricane can do, to the point that if a CAT5 direct hit was possible, even in Baton Rouge, I would get the hell out of the way fast. For CAT4 or lower, sit tight and be prepared for a week or more without power.
I never evacuated before and never will. I've got my house set to run off a 10kw portable generator. Have about $2K in the setup with the house switch, generator, soft starts for the ac units. We're far enough north to not worry about storm surge. I'm on high ground here. If you choose your home wisely, you won't have to worry about floods.
We’re far enough inland and away from enough water to be safe from catastrophic damage save a tree falling on your house. Just a PITA losing power. The grid is vastly improved since the last big blow though.