When the storm approaches the winds increase steadily. AAfter the eye passes over, you go from calm to hurricane force winds almost instantly. I sure wouldn't want +100 mph winds slamming into my house that quickly. I can see where the damage would be worse from that.
That's always been my assumption, too. But this wasn't a "slam". It was about 2 hours of VERY constant, sustained winds of about 100 mph. It didn't waver. It didn't gust. It was like being in a wind tunnel...steady and strong. The front side wasn't anything like that.
Interestingly, the eye passed about 85 miles west of here, so we were on the "good" side of the storm. When I refer to the eye passing, we didn't get the lull. Just a lower intensity period of about 20 minute. We thought the worst was over. The back side of the storm took us by surprise.