"Southwest Louisiana isn't like NOLA. We actually have competent leadership here who isn't corrupt to the bone"
No they just learned from NOLA leaders mistakes.
No, they were and are prepared because they are competent. They had a mandatory evacuation for Hurricane Lili in 2002 and it was successful then, there were a few kinks that they discovered and they addressed them. This isn't the first storm that we have encountered.
Back in 1957 Hurricane Audrey was a cat 4 storm that slammed Cameron Parish except the people were told by the National Weather Service to go to bed and get a good night's sleep before leaving because they had plenty of time to get out, well the storm sped up and made landfall 12 hours earlier than planned killing over 600 people. Ever since then the people of SWLA don't play around with hurricanes. They leave.