I lived in New Orleans for several years. We always talked about the Doomsday scenario of a Cat 5 Hurricane picking up Lake Pontchartrain and dumping it in the French Quarter. It's very sad to see it coming true.

Regarding why people are out and about, its not so much "Must go out and look" but the desire to check on friends, family, or to survey the damage. The flood in Metarie in 95(?) was alot like this. Our friend's house flooded in the morning and in the afternoon, a group had assembled to help them clean up. It's just what we did because flooding was fairly common.

You also have to remember that everyone thought that they had dodged the bullet then the levee let loose. I'm guessing many people were caught off guard.

As far as how people died, most go out to survey the damage and get hit by debris or downed powerlines or walk into a canal or open manhole. In a car, you wouldn't believe the number of people that think they can get through high water. We watched one guy a few years back try to drive his car through an underpass where a bus was submerged in the other lane. Driving into canals that are flooded over is also very common.