A cat 5 would shear pine forests like a giant scythe. Yes, indeed. It would also shear a forest of power poles. In driving around I noticed, though, that the steel roofs fared much better than shingles. That does not seem to hold for the large buildings, especially the churches. Their roofs were uniformly shredded and twisted.
I also noticed that when in hurricane struck areas. I assume shingles are more likely to have wind get under them and do to them what a fish scaler does to a fish.
Once the asphalt shingles are compromised, wind gets beneath the felt paper, everything peels away. Once the wind gets beneath the roof via failed soffit or broken windows, the unstrapped roof becomes a giant kite.
Concrete tiles seemed to fair better until a tile from your upwind neighbor's roof blows into yours and shatters several which in turn blow into your downwind neighbor's roof and shatter his tiles.