My sister lives in Houston, which is the 4th largest city in the U.S. In 2008 Hurricane Ike hit Galveston and then Houston.
She and her family decided to ride this one out instead of evacuating (primarily due to the mandatory evacuation fiasco for Hurricane Rita back in 2005, when it took something like 28 hrs to drive from Houston to Austin (normally a 3 hr drive). Luckily, their house sustained no major damage, though there were numerous downed trees in the neighborhood.
But they lost electricity completely, for something like 10 days. You try "living" without power for that long - it's difficult. Gasoline was hard to come by, a few people had portable generators, but it's still difficult to cook or refrigerate foods.
The downed trees made it difficult to traverse alot of roads, and the utility companies were so overtaxed it took that long just to get the repairs made to get things back up and running.
Stay safe.
My wife's between Philly and the NJ coast, and very nervous. I'm nervous as well.