Prior to 1900, the big city on Galveston Bay was Galveston itself, not Houston. The diastrous Galveston hurricane of 1900 prompted many businesses to relocate further inland to Houston. Houston is actually far enough inland to be protected from the most severe winds of hurricanes. Most of the damage Houston has experienced from storms over the years has been from flooding, not winds. Much of the flooding could have been prevented with more thoughtful planning.

So, the question shouldn't be "Why build cities in path of hurricanes?" but "Why build cities in path of hurricanes so poorly?"

Neither Katrina nor Harvey were huge natural disasters. They were ordinary scale natural disasters hugely exacerbated by human planning and engineering failures.