An alternative viewpoint from a friend who lived in Florida for years:
If you evacuate, you have no idea when they will let you back in to your house. It could be days - it could be weeks. A house that got wet/flooded has a reasonable chance of being saved if you can get in quickly to remove the wet flooring/drywall/etc before serious mold and rot set in. Once it moves into the structure, the chances of saving the house go down. Or if the house didn't flood, get a tarp over damaged roofing and/or windows to prevent water damage inside. When New Orleans got hit, a lot of people were forbidden to return to their home in that critical time period when saving it may have been possible. And the longer an area sits officially evacuated, the greater the chance for looting or some other issue (something as simple as a broken gas pipe that could be turned off if someone is there to do it could result in a total loss if no one is there to do it).
If you can imagine sitting in a hotel 200 miles away and seeing your damaged but savable home on TV, and then being told you cannot go take care of it for weeks while it slowly becomes a total loss, or finally being allowed back into your neighborhood to discover your home safe from the storm but cleaned out by looters, then riding it out in place MAY start to make sense to some people.