It wasn't designed for storm surge, not hurricanes. Look at all the houses in the middle picture: They are flooded, but they are still standing. Compare that to pictures of Florida after Hurricane Andrew back in 1992. The houses were put together so poorly that most of them were flattened. I remember seeing a picture that was blocks of rubble with one house in the middle that had only lost a few shingles. That one house had been built by Habitat for Humanity. In other words, the one house that was built with some care, survived the hurricane with little issue, while all the houses around it were flattened. In comparison, the houses in that picture survived the wind without issue, but the storm surge is a different matter.