cool story... my actual hands on experience iwth hurricanes is limited to 1, gloria in 1986.. nothing like what you described however. gloria caused a significant wind event across southern new england but was less than the bigger events we've had up this way in lore...such as 1938, which gust to 186mph at an official nws observation post sw of boston. anyway, gloria was fun for the loud roaring the preceded each gust... where i was living at that time was heavily boreal, so there were the loud pops and cracks constantly going off within as concophony amid the roar of the winds... it was all over in just 5 hours ( not atypical for events striking new england as they move so incredibly fast). we lost power for 5 days and most places had in back in 3 weeks - i think.. the storm could have been a lot worse for us because gloria had max sustained winds of 155 while in transit in the atlantic, but as it neared the bahamas, it weakened to a category 3...than 2 near the carolina outer banks, then 1 as it cross long island... but, it was moving so fast, 45 mph, that adding this momentum to even tropical storm force wind gust became a formidable experience; still, could have been much worse if that odd weakening near the bahamas did not ultimately spare new england...

...wilma was screaming along when she got to the eastern part of the peninsula.. i believe she was moving better that 25mph at that time and accelerating... if you were in the southern/southeastern semi-circle of her circulation, this translational velocity needed to be added to the wind action... this likely augmented some of her "real" strengths. in any event, must have been a strange combination of terror, awe, and fascination as an experience!