For TX inlanders, this is from the NOAA site:
The strongest winds usually occur in the right side of the eyewall of the hurricane. Wind speed usually decreases significantly within 12 hours after landfall. Nonetheless, winds can stay above hurricane strength well inland. Hurricane Hugo (1989), for example, battered Charlotte, North Carolina (which is 175 miles inland) with gusts to nearly 100 mph.
During Katrina, my friend who lives in Corinth reported 10 inches of rain and winds in the 50 mile per hour range...and Corinth is on the Tennessee Mississippi border...a long way from landfall...
I'm really going to be watching it for this reason. At THIS point it looks like we'll be on the left side - but I suppose you never know huh?
I think I'm more worried about tornados - though there is something about the way the land lies around our house that storms generally seem to split around us.. I don't know why - but when we watch them coming on radar you can see them split and rejoin.. it doesn't seem to matter what direction they come from.. it's VERY weird.
We're preparing tho' ... stay safe!!!
I was in Charlotte 6 months after Hugo, the place was still a mess, truck after truck of trees going past. You'd drive down the highway and the forest on both sides was snapped off 30 feet above the ground. Hotels full of out of state linemen.