The last hurricane to hit the US was Ike in September, 2008. Residents were told by the National Weather Service to leave or face “certain death.” Most didn’t leave and few died.
They got lucky. The animation below is made from running NCAR’s WRF weather model for a three day period, including the landfall. It shows the strength of N-S winds.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLjQlQxKoFI]
Note that just east of Galveston, there were very strong southerly winds. Just to the west, the winds were very strong from the north. Had the hurricane eye passed 15 miles to the west, there might have been a massive storm surge directly on the island, like the one which killed almost everyone in Galveston in September, 1900.
Cue Glen Campbell…