I live East of I-95, less than 2 miles from the ocean on a canal with ocean access, and have all my life (40+ years). I get my weather reports from NOAA, and leave the hype on TV off. Due to the eye wobble, I barely saw tropical storm force winds, but I am sure some people will say "I lived through Hurricane Matthew, and hurricanes are nothing more than a rainy day." I had a friend from Colorado text me yesterday morning if we were OK, because the news media made the expected devastation in my area to be similar to that of a war zone. That friend is familiar with what post-hurricane destruction looks like, she lived in Homestead prior to Hurricane Andrew and was with me in Homestead 6 months after Andrew doing volunteer cleanup. Even 6 months after the storm, there was plenty of clean up to do!
Certainly, I have neighbors (renters) who don't have impact windows, who didn't bother to put up plywood, or panels over their windows on Thursday. They may also falsely presume an air bag will save them from any and every type of car accident. Thursday morning when my wife and I left at daybreak to go install hurricane panels on a friend's rental property, the neighbor with impact glass windows living adjacent to home with nothing over the windows was installing his hurricane panels over his impact glass windows. One can never be too prepared. Weather is only mildly predictable, at best.
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