A close call is probably more accurate. I live on the gulf side and Cuba acts like an enormous shield normally. Most Hurricane's gut themselves on Cuba's mountains and fail to regain enough strength to really be a threat to my area of the gulf coast.

However, occasionally they linger in the gulf for a crazy amount of time and then slam into my neck of the woods, like Ian did.

Honestly, Ian wouldn't have been awful had it not been moving so slow. 6-8 hours of sustained category 4+ winds is what did it (if you didn't get storm surged). My house didn't start taking wind damage till well after the 4 hour mark.