>>If a cat 1 creates this amount of issues, the folks up north will need to some rethinking as a cat 2 or 3 would be a doozy for them. I can’t imaging what they would do with a cat 4.
This storm had a worse storm surge than the 1938 Hurricane, which started as a Cat 5 but hit land as a Cat 3. Wind damage was never the primary concern with this storm, it was storm surge. That 1938 hurricane did way more damage and cut a swath through NY and New England hundreds of miles wide. That is still the worst storm to hit this area, well, that we know about.
I don’t know that we could prepare for that kind of storm to be honest.
Wiki says otherwise - the 38 storm had 18 foot storm surge and this one only hit 15.