It wasn't at all certain where Sandy would make landfall until a few days before it hit, not "weeks". And then mandatory evacuation of the easily floodable Zone A was not ordered until a day or so before the storm. No one knew it was going to exceed Hurricane Irene in its ferocity. People have seen over and over again how the weatherman hypes storms and they've turned out to be nothing. A lot of the deaths from Hurricane Sandy were not from people failing to evacuate; they were from trees falling on people well away from the storm surge and electrocution from fallen wires well away from the storm surge. In areas where they should have been "safe". So please spare us your armchair quarterbacking and air of superiority. You have no idea what you're talking about.
We were without power for 2 weeks after Ike with trees down on powerlines and houses and streets. Citizens with chain saw were out the next day clearing them away. Don't ever think that Gulf Coast residents don't know about hurricanes and hurricane warnings.