The uncertainty levels are still far too high to blow off the chance from a risk management perspective.
Downside to prepare? Very little. Downside if not prepared? Huge. Any risk manager is going to say yes if you’re in Alabama you take basic preps for that Cat 5 headed in your direction, even if the odds are high it will turn away.
The logistics of disaster preparation are an exercise in risk management, whereas forecasting is not.
If you were in Puerto Rico and listened to the forecasters, you got a false alarm. Not one forecast put Dorian east of PR, yet there it went anyway.
Listen - I did this job for 32 years. I did this EXACT job. I was a professional met working with FEMA, helping decision-makers and CAT members make decisions. From a risk management perspective, it is EXACLTY appropriate. I still listen into the conference calls with the NHC even though I am retired. I know what is being said and what the states are being briefed. Alabama was not being briefed by ANY sane forecaster that there was a threat on the 1st of September. NONE. Even a first-year meteorology student would have given the all-clear. Again - I did this EXACT job for 32 years - eventually doing it for NORTHCOM, FEMA and DHS and interacting with every agency from counties to the national command authority. I know what happens and how it happens. People don't just waste money and keep their EOCs operational for the heck of it (unless they have a bunch of money left over in their FY budgets and need to burn it - then that's a different story). Guys don't like working mid-shifts if they don't have to.
As far as Dorian and PR - Tropical Storm warning went out true - but that happens often on weak - sheared storms in the eastern Caribbean.
A Cat 5 in deep flow with an approaching and low model spread and a weak sheared TS in the eastern Caribbean steered by low-level flow are two totally different animals.