The media lamebrains reflexivly interpret the absence of immediate news to mean "nothing bad happened" - they cannot comprehend that sometimes when all power is lost over a wide area, the bad news can't be discovered right away . . . then, when they later find out about all the damage they failed to take seriously, they try to minimize it to cover their butts for missing it in the first place. Hurricane Hugo was the classic example of this, but the pattern always repeats.
Also most networks sent their "A" talent to Tampa to do the standing outside in the wind thing (which I think is an abomination that has reduced the useful info given to the public by about 95%, but that's another story), and all of those folks are damn POed they didn't get their storm.
If they asked me that, I'd just say, "You can't be serious." Ignorant!
You are right. The absence of major reports tells me that there is too much damage to get to the locations that are the worst off. The fact that this thing is still producing to gusts after being onshore for 7 hours should tell everyone that this was a beast. Tomorrow is going to prove that this thing did a ton of damage.