The old town is protected a little bit from the winds (compared to the buildings on the beaches). However, it's not protected from the water. The harbor is literally feet away from the main road through town. This road and the other streets get flooded very quickly with any major rain storm.

Jessica, do you still have your photos of the flooded areas? It's quite a sight! The town seems to take it in stride, though. Sooner or later everything dries out and then it's back to business as usual.

The year that I lived there, we experienced something like four hurricanes and one storm that did as much damage as the hurricanes -- and this all was in a two-month period. I do think we were protected from the worst of it by being a bit looped in. There was a lot of damage throughout the area (hundreds of downed trees and such), but the old structures in the city held strong.