But if you are trapped and can't leave, what is the difference if you know it is coming or not?
"But if you are trapped and can't leave, what is the difference if you know it is coming or not?"
I'm not sure whether you're asking about the historic Galveston storm or this one. But, either way, the difference would be keeping your wits about you and doing everything you can to keep yourself and your family as safe as possible, or making bad decisions due to panicking over all the doomsday prognostications, or giving up and getting drunk, waiting to die, due to all the aforementioned doomsday prognostications.
I don't think people really understood what a hurricane was, back in Galveston. We do now, which is for the better if you have no choice but to weather it. Storm surge and flooding will have worse effects than wind, for most people, but not all. A very solid, masonry or concrete, multistory structure with as few windows as possible would be the first thing I'd be searching for, right now. And I'd get into it, going to at least the third floor, but not the very top floor. Everything else would be secondary.