The problem with hurricanes is USUALLY storm surge, but Hurricane Michael hit Mexico Beach with 150 mph sustained winds, effectively making it a very large EF3 tornado. NOAA predicted that wind would be the biggest problem, and if you watch any footage from Hurricane Michael, that's pretty much all it is with a side of storm surge.

What also happened is that this is not an area usually hit by hurricanes, so a lot of the structures were built mid-century and hadn't been put through the cycle of hurricane, rebuild, hurricane, rebuild that much of Florida has so lack of buildings up to the ol' post-Andrew code level is also a LOT of the problem.