Hurricanes do not always travel steadily in one direction. Sometimes it will stay over one spot for several hours, like a huge, spinning top. It can also suddenly change direction for no reason. Sometimes they will move toward land and then simply blow away to sea.
When a hurricane reaches land, friction caused by the earth makes its winds spiral even faster. However, after spending their first fury, the winds begin to weaken. As it travels over land, it will lose the “fuel” it held from the warm tropical waters where it first began, and slows down.
Forces of Nature: ThinkQuest 2000 (Team #C003603)
http://library.thinkquest.org/C003603/english/hurricanes/thehurricane.shtml
A hurricane will pass over in three stages. The first stage brings curtains of rain in winds as fast as 200 miles an hour. Second, the eye will arrive, causing the winds to die down, the rain to stop, and sometimes the sky to appear. It seems as if the storm is over, but then the third stage comes - the other side of the eye with more fierce winds and rain.