They just died in massive numbers. There was no way to predict an ocean being sprayed on your head at then-unimaginable wind speeds.

And it wasn’t just these Caribbean hurricanes; the PNW ”Big One” magnitude 8 earthquake of 1700, whose tsunamis were felt all the way in Japan that year, lowered forests into lakes and the sea, and indigenous legends tell stories of whole villages from Vancouver Island to what is now Olympia getting obliterated by tsunamis without a trace, or just lowered into the sound completely. Not to mention the 1755 Lisbon earthquake that ended with basically the whole city having to be rebuilt, and Mt. Vesuvius erupting in the first century.