The 3 mandatory evacuations a year is from a friend who lived there all her life until about 3 years ago, and arrived back on the Wednesday before the hurricane. "Thank G-d we decided to evacuate. I was adamant not to evacuate. We had just schlepped 2 babies all the way from Australia and N.O. has about 3 mandatory evacuations declared a year, so I wasn't all that into it [...] I can see why people chose not to evacuate. The only reason I came around in the end was that I figured it would be more uncomfortable if we lost electricity for several days than to endure schlepping the kids through an evacuation. Luckily I changed my mind in time." 3 a year may not be a precise figure, but I trust my correspondent's veracity.

As for prisoners being released, it was in all the news reports.