I agree with your point, the local weather folks try to drive us all into a frenzy over nothing, just to improve ratings, and I suppose they like feeling important, like most of us. One guy who does not do that is Don Noe, ch 10 meteorologist in Miami. He's my favorite for that reason, he just tells it like it is, straightforward, no exaggeration.
OTOH, Andrew went from a tropical storm to a cat 4 in less than a day before it slammed Eleuthera, Cat Cay, and us here in Miami, so I'm not particularly blase about these things either.
If you live on the coast in So FL or the Gulf coast you're going to be hit once in awhile. Even the east coast, esp. in NC. It's just a part of life.
You got OUR best meterologist- David Bernard, there in Miami. Listen to him. We're now left with the nutballs.