There is no such thing as a minor hurricane at strike point. However, there is a real difference in death and damage between cat 2 and cat 4. Ft. Meyers looked like it had localized structural damage but nothing widespread. Andrew was horrific in the amount of damage it did - this is no where close.
And thank God for it. This certainly isn't some sort of competition. But I'm wondering about our folks here on the Outer Banks. If this storm still has steam when it hits the Atlantic, the Outer Banks will get hit by their third hurricane in less than a year.
LOL - I live on a lake and there are girls out in the middle swimming right now. Eye is about 90 minutes away.
The first few hours after Andrew was a sequence of "it doesn't look that bad" and "bullet dodged" in the media, as it was easier to report from the less damaged areas, and most of the media had set up north of Miami. The "Oh S*** didn't happen till after someone took a chopper flight south of Miami the next morning.