dear Tomche, until the 1950s, we would have an idea that a hurricane was coming if its eye went across land. Even then, the mechanics of these storms were not well understood and the predictions were not very good, but a poor prediction was better than no prediction at all.
Today, prediction is done with the help of the most powerful supercomputers available, along with satellite photos and measurements done by airplanes flying into the storm, along with a much better understanding of the dynamics of the atmosphere.
As you’re sitting through the hurricane imagine that you had no warning. That you and your loved ones were out at school, work, shul, shopping and a storm such as this started. For a while it would be relatively indistinguishable from a violent thunderstorm, but you would soon realize (probably too late) that is was much more. Then you’d be in real peril. That’s why hundreds or thousands of people would die.