When Hugo hit here in '89, my wife (not then though) had 3' of water go through her house on the Isle of Palms. The government shut down the island and wouldn't let her (or anyone else) back on for two weeks, so a lot of stuff got ruined or stolen. To make matters worse, Senator Hollings got air lifted to his house to secure his things while the National Guard had troops on the island with orders to shoot people on the island, homeowners or not. Now, every time a storm nears, I pack up the dogs and bird and head out, leaving her there. She vows she'd rather swim from the roof than go through that again.
When there is a storm headed our way, there are people scoping the area for empty homes to loot before or right after the storm. We got some of the ugly side of Katrina at a cat 1, and I won't stay again if I have a 'safer' place to go.
Re the roof, there's a joke about that... trying to remember.