Yes the construction was very much to blame. After Andrew we went into our attic (house built in the 80s in central Broward) and sure enough 60-70% of the hurricane straps were attached to nothing, zip, nada. You could see where the roof nails missed the trusses. So our roof was held down by only its own weight, if the wind had blown over about a Cat 3 I bet it would have failed too. My current house was built in 93, right after Andrew when they actually enforced the codes, we took the eyewall of Wilma (Cat 3 landfall, Cat 2 over land) and lost a fewn roof cap tiles but that was it. Just look at the fancy homes built on pilings (so no surge) that survived Ian... we can build hurricane resistant structures but they are expensive. Water is 100X worse then wind in terms of damage which should surprise nobody given how much water weighs.

My theory is after the Andrew reclassification I believe the NHC started adding 15% to all wind calculations to ensure they never have to admit they under-estimated things. Do I need to adjust my tinfoil hat? Maybe but the data always comes in with winds below what the NHC reports during landfall.