Any rating system is going to fail to be actionable until two things happen. 1, structures need to be rated by the level of wind they're able to withstand, and

Any rating system is going to fail to be actionable until two things happen. 1, structures need to be rated by the level of wind they're able to withstand, and 2, geographic regions need to be categorized by their likelihood of flooding. As it stands, as a person, you have no way of knowing if you have a cat X capable roof, nor do you know if you're in an area that is likely to flood, or how likely that area is to flood. Until you have a concrete rating system for those things, you'll have more people thinking that "We can just hunker down" when a cat X is barreling down on them than you want. That sounds like a big bite to take, but, realistically, you can more or less tag existing houses based on when they were built (ie under which revision of the building code were they built) and then use USGS data to determine flood risk. Then, you categorize all of the above by storm, ie, live in a cat 3 area with a cat 4 house? Evacuate if you have a cat 3 storm because it's going to flood. That will also inform localities as to which areas are going to need to be evacuated first, along with which areas are going to need more emergency assistance post-storm so resources can be allocated more efficiently. We're already kinda sorta accounting for this at the local level, but, codifying the practice allows it to scale and improve over time.