It was 2004, hurricanes Francis and Jean both made land fall along the Treasure Coast. More Vero Beach than Port St Lucie. Port St Lucie is on the St. Lucie River, not directly on the coast. I think they both made land fall as cat threes. We were evacuated for both. The next year was when there were so many named storms that they got into the Greek Alphabet. We got hit by Wilma, a cat three. No one was evacuated because they thought it was only going to be a tropical storm. It was pretty scary. We haven't had a major storm since.
The gulf coast is more susceptible to storm surge because it is shallow and shaped like a bowl.
The insurance is expensive, but I'm not sure it would off set a state and city income tax. When I lived in NYC my federal, state and city taxes totaled 55%, but that was awhile ago.