Start with the fact that many hurricanes don't hit anything, others don't hit much of anything. Did we have aircraft flying into hurricanes to measure wind speed and pressure in 1900? Did we have accurate instrumentation on some barely inhabited island to accurately measure wind speeds at to determine if they were 130 or 150? Did we know that the hurricane that came ashore in FL in 1900 wasn't a cat 4 or 5 two days earlier? It could very well be recorded as only a cat 3, when today it would be recorded more accurately as a cat 4 or 5 where we're constantly tracking it.
only because we have better monitoring?