Eye wall of cat 3 or higher.

I would nope the frick out so fast if anything higher than a 2 was bearing down on me.

Sat in the northeastern eye wall of IDA for hours at my dads house pushing against the the metal front doors anchored into the ground to keep them from blowing in

Thing was crawling and each shift it made kept us in the wall even longer

Katrina eye wall was bad in Waveland

Eye of Zeta passed over my house in 2020. Good thing that fricker was moving fast or there would have been nothing left in South Lafourche for Ida to destroy a year later.

Learned my lesson and GTFO when the next one put a bullseye on us.

. and the damage they can do it even "low" levels.

The biggest misnomer in hurricane reporting is ground level winds as it relates to upper level winds. I am not suggesting there is a better method of reporting, but when people hear CAT-3 hurricane and 125 mph winds, they don't realize those are upper level wind readings they are using for classification (Someone with more knowledge may correct me on this, but I believe it to be the case). And when that CAT-3 hits an area and the damage is bad but not catastrophic, I don't think they realize that a lot of that damage was during ground level winds of 60-70 mph. They then become jaded when they look at their weather app for the next storm and see "only" 60 mph winds forecast for their area and don't take even that amount of wind serious enough.

If you have ever tried to stand, or just watch from behind a protected structure as it happens, during sustained 60 mph wind, you quickly realize its no joke.

Road out Zeta in Fourchon on a supply boat. Had a picture of 115 knot winds from the wind sensors. We were tied up in Bayou Lafourche and snapped 11 mooring lines and had to emergency drop both anchors. Don’t want to do that again

two is my strongest like that. No thanks to anything stronger as a direct hit.

Last year

Right over my house

But it was dark so I couldn’t see anything

The eye of Zeta passed over us. All together it lasted maybe 2.5 hours. It was so bizarre because there was no rain, just the wind. No noise of raindrops hitting the window, just a constant whistling sound. At one point I walked outside while the eye was right over us. It was calm but the sky was a hazel brown that I have never seen before with a constant spinning cloud all around the sky. Pretty nuts.