I was using Google Earth to find the elevation of their house (5 to 10 ft). Obviously, they would be flooded if it made landfall anywhere near there.
I guess I was just mainly curious as to how the surge decreases with increasing distance from the eye. With that information, combined with the elevation data, you could determine the potential flooding as you say. Thanks.
The NHC has cmputer models to predict storm surge. I'm not sure if they are available to the public, though, like a lot of their other info. I'd be worth checking out.
I use this formula to predict surge.
Outer eyewall to outer eyewall radius is assigned the variable R.
Max surge begins halfway between eyecenter at landfall and outer left eyewall at landfall.
Max surge stretches right for a distance of 2 times R, with a third value of R getting less dangerous but still significant surge.
This has served me well.