Your trend graphics are very useful. Old “ Weather Eyes” know, watch the trend, not the storm, till about 24 hours out, then watch both.
As Matthew proved, getting raked during an oblique passage sucks.
As Katrina proved, head-on sucks much worse.
I live in St Augustine, and we got raked by Matthew - or actually, by the combination of normal high tides and flood surge. Four hundred homes were destroyed, and some people still haven’t got back into their houses. I had to live somewhere else for 3 months but was fortunate enough to have a new house where the builder had all the materials and put his other jobs aside to rebuild his Matthew-destroyed houses.
People here are freaked out. However, we’re doing much better prep than before. Sandbag madness - we rarely get wind damage because the town is in sort of a dip with a barrier island out front - but historically, since the 16th century, hurricane or nor’easter floods have always been our problem.