The public safety is the part that I’m most adamant about keeping public. Otherwise we’d end up with private alerts that you have to pay to see, and then those traveling via word of mouth, not reaching as many people and potentially conflicting (if there all multiple private entities all sending out their own warnings).
Yeah, the sparsity of stations and failure of the few existing ones (whether mechanical or loss of power) is the primary reason so few 100+ gusts were recorded.
In regards to boundary layer mixing/etc, that seems to vary substantially from storm to storm. Time of day/year, topography, internal convective structure(s) of the hurricane itself, and mere randomness/chaos all factor into the equation. I wouldn’t say it’s “uncommon” for those peak winds to mix down well inland (there are many cases where near full mixing was realized 150+ miles inland). Rather, it just depends on the situation.
He campaigned in 2016 on draining the swamp. He never mentions that anymore, because his whole entourage lives in the swamp these days. He should win Georgia. A good portion of that state is swamp. I'm sure he feels right at home there.