[nscalf]

I lived in Florida for a long time, I can tell you that people don’t evacuate when it’s a cat 4 threatening to maybe become a cat 5. Having a category meaning “this is much worse than a 4” would be meaningful here. I see no reason to have an upper limit, it just artificially makes everything at and above the cat 5 threshold mean the same thing.

Also, Florida homes are built from cement, meant to survive storms like that. The building codes come from hurricane andrew, a particularly damaging cat 5.

[matwood]

Florida gonna Florida. I grew up and still live in a hurricane area. Went through a cat 5 as a kid - not going to do that again. But, cat 2/3 or less I'm not going anywhere. Last time we took a direct cat 2, we didn't even lose power. Like you said, FL and really most of the southeast coast learned from Andrew. Simple changes like roof ties and more expensive ones like cement plank siding make a pretty significant difference [1].

TBH, my main concern in a storm is water. My house is ~12' off the ground and given its location, if there's water in the house we're basically in an end of days, biblical level storm.

[1] https://www.usglassmag.com/30-years-later-hurricane-andrew-r...

[Beldin]

> Having a category meaning “this is much worse than a 4” would be meaningful here.

But don't you think that cat 5 would become the new 4? That is: why do you think extending the scale will expand the range of warnings communicated, instead of smearing the existing range out over more values?

[JumpCrisscross]

> don't you think that cat 5 would become the new 4?

The few who might be saved are worth it. We can’t keep optimising for saving idiots.

[deadbabe]

Not just cement, all new construction now requires impact windows and doors that can withstand a Cat 5 by default.