By 11 tonight, it was 195 miles south of New Orleans, packing tree-snapping sustained winds of up to 145 miles per hour.
Allstate institutes the deductible only for storms packing 100-m.p.h. winds for at least a minute.
Packing winds of 105 miles per hour, the storm surprised weather forecasters by not turning to the north, as was expected earlier in the day.
Despite weakening to Category 4, the storm was still packing winds of 145 miles per hour and appeared headed toward eastern Texas and western Louisiana.
In August 1979 Hurricane David, packing winds of 150mph, struck the island with devastating force.
It was huge and it packed high winds, but it brought little rain and moved with menacing slowness.
About a minute later, the tornado struck, packing winds in excess of 150 miles per hour.
Thursday's storm, packing winds of 130 miles an hour, was the fourth to hit the Philippines in two weeks.
At its peak late last month, the hurricane packed 180-mile-an-hour winds, making it a deadly category 5 storm, the most powerful on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
Hurricanes packing winds up to 225 miles an hour are foreseen.