That being said, a personal anecdote:
Back when I was finishing my undergraduate work, a hurricane was projected to hit along the Texas / Mexico border. One of my brothers was living there with his family, and we agreed to host them for a few days.
The catch?
The college I was taking my 300 and 400 - level classes through was slowly migrating to doing examinations online so as to allow more actual in-class time for lectures and demonstrations. The same day that my brother and his family were due to arrive was the same day that my midterm in one of my capstone classes was to go online. To be more specific, the test would go live a mere hour before my brother and his family were due in. So I explained to my parents that at this time on this date, I needed to be online to do my test. Otherwise, there was no guarantee I'd be able to get it done with everyone around.
Shortly before my test was supposed to start, my mom decided that the lawn needed to be mowed. So I pulled the mower out (it was a gasoline-powered mower), got it ready to go, and started it for her. I then went inside, fired up my laptop, and logged onto the college's online portal. Cue my test.
Dad came home from work about 10 minutes into my test, meaning that I was still taking it and my mom was still out front mowing. He'd had a bad day at work, and so had forgotten that I said I had a test that evening. He saw my mom out front mowing the lawn, saw me on my laptop, and exploded. It took me three attempts, during which I had to repeatedly show him the screen, to explain that I was taking my midterm and that mom decided to mow the lawn despite this.
For obvious reasons, although I finished my midterm I failed it miserably. Fortunately, I blew the class project out of the water and got a 90% on my final exam, so was still able to pass.
Just another example of how hurricanes can affect people who don't even live near the path of one.