Moderate? Harvey was forecast to be a major at landfall. But my point stands. The worst case of wind and flooding happened with Harvey. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes it doesn't. But you have to prepare along the lines of the worst-case forecast.
Once again, you are engaging in the mental masturbation of forecasting after the storm is done, and you are rewriting the history of the storm in the process. Irma was a Cat 4 on the edge of Cat 5 just south of Florida when the evacuation calls were made. Cat 3 came later when Irma went closer to Cuba than forecast. No one could have been certain that would happen.
... and some are clinging to the notion that the damage done was as severe as forecast when they should be giving thanks to God that it was not.
The evacuation was excessive because the storm was hyped, there were millions on the move, quite a number of whom were not in any evacuation zone. Are you willing to acknowledge this? That is a problem and it will come back to bite anyone who thinks it’s a good thing when Florida actually is hit with a 4 or a 5. It’s not an if, it’s a when and creating resistance to evacuation due to overblown media accounts is a very inadvisable thing looking to the future. Can you “future-cast?”