Stocking up on fuel and food and ice to avoid being out on the roads is a good idea.

Stocking up on patience because tempers will be very short.

Baton Rouge was on edge for over a year after Katrina/Rita, and we're still having problems such as kids in the schools segregating themselves sometimes violently into "225" and "504" groups (504 is NOLA's area code, 225 is Baton Rouge's).

Encouraging others to be open to intergrating the evacuees into your community cause they're going to be there for a while whether you like it or not. Might as well help them feel a sense of belonging.

I would tell the new staff/patients on my unit and people in the grocery store that came out of NOLA "welcome to the neighborhood". They really didn't want to be there as much as some of the "natives" didn't want them there.

Planning your trips around town and knowing your alternate routes due to traffic jams is a must. What was a 25-30 minute commute home in the evening became an 1 1/2 hour lesson in deep breathing and patience.

I would let people into traffic as an act of defiance even though I was seething just because I refuse to let the environment make me into an a**hole.

I like Blast's idea of printing out maps to shelters and other services. There were a couple of times I wished I had some maps because though I give excellent directions (and I'm exceeding humble as well) the poor folks I was trying to direct were so stressed that they just couldn't process anything except the most basic instructions no matter how intelligent they were before the storm.

Also having on hand stuff like Walmart gift cards or McDonald's gift certificates on hand because you will run across people stranded out of gas or hungry.

My wife's church opened up to house Red Cross volunteers for several months. They had cots in the friendship building. Individuals and families in the congregation would take turns doing laundry (we did the thursday loads) or preparing meals for a specific night. They used sticky notes on the wall for what items needed to be provided and folks would write on the sticky note what they would fix for that night.

It was pretty impressive set up that evolved.

Probably having plan / phone tree of what ever group you belong to with how/what y'all are willing/able to do before hand would be helpful.