Obviously, the forecasters misfire quite a bit. Just a few days ago, virtually ALL of the computer models showed something a lot different than now.
A little over a year ago, they forecast Hurricane Irma to rake the east side of Florida, and we had two couples (friends of ours) evacuate their area and come over to stay at a hotel near us in Sarasota (on the west coast of the state). But by the time they arrived, the forecasters were calling for a direct hit on the west coast, so they scurried back to their east-coast homes.
So, here in Sarasota, we braced for a direct hit by a Cat-3 or Cat-4 storm, but by the time Irma made landfall, the storm had shifted eastward, and it wound up going down the center of the state, so we were spared any major damage. On the other hand, two hours to the northeast (in the Orlando area), some of our family members sustained roof (and other) damages.
Even though it should be the case -- with modern technology -- I don't believe that the modern-day forecasters do much better in their predictions than their predecessors did many decades ago.
Regardless of where Florence hits, and regardless of the severity of what the storm causes, I hope that residents of the affected areas have prepared themselves as best possible, and I hope that things aren't anywhere near the direst of forecasts.