There's currently a hurricane incoming from the Gulf of Mexico, it'll be interesting to compare the damage it causes to the damage that would have been caused by a regular rocket launch.
Ultimately, these rocket operations need to be done somewhere. Due to their nature that "somewhere" has a lot of restrictions on it. It needs to be as far south as practical (to benefit from Earth's rotation), it needs to be somewhere far from human habitation for safety and sonic reasons, and the path to the west needs to be clear of stuff that could be damaged by falling debris. For political reasons it needs to be in the United States. All these competing criteria generally mean it's going to have to be on a southern coastline where there's currently wilderness.