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All in all it was way worse then expected

I guess I would need to live there. But on what do you base expectations?

Here in the southern Applachians, our worst weather is a big snow that knocks power out for half a day in town.

1989 was a biggie that took a week for the hinterlands.

I base it on having lived through 30+ years of Florida hurricanes, mixed in with a few tornadoes, a couple of minor floods, etc.

Previous to that I've lived through 20 years of NY Snowstorms and a bunch of years trucking through Colorado and Minnesota usually in the winter months with snowstorms so bad truckers were lost for weeks. Ohio 1976 comes to mind.

In snowstorms your refrigerator becomes the closest snow mound to the kitchen, during a hurricane your food spoils and you are left with zip. No water. No sewer. Nothing but 90+ degree temps. (Wilma gave us a big break and sucked all the heat out of the air dropping 20 degrees off the normal temps).

But a snowstorm doesn't rip your roof off and leave you wide open to an ongoing storm. Snow may crush your roof after the storm has run it's course, but USUALLY not during. Also your windows don't get blown out, your trees aren't uprooted and tossed into the neighbors car or living room, your screened patio doesn't get destroyed because you probably don't have one and the 110 mph winds don't turn the thick wall of rain 90degrees and shoot right through roof and attic vents, door moldings, weak shutters or concrete block seepage!

So what do I base my expectations on? IF I live through it, it's cool. If I have to fight it while it's passing it's not cool. Wilma forced me to physically fight it while it pounded and pounded and tried its best to destroy everything in it's path.

My windows and doors and roof are rated 200mph+. My house walls are rated a bit lower but meet all hurricane code as of 2000. I had this house built with storms like Wilma in mind. But I didn't care to test it. It's now tested safe for a Cat 3 hurricane.

So if you want to compare snowstorms to hurricanes, think of a matchbook compared to a pot of molten steel.