I'm pretty close to the ocean, the barrier beach is across the bay and the marshlands. There was a breakthrough during the storm of the century in the 90s (Perfect Storm movie) and the water was another 2 feet deeper. This was pretty scary..not the flooding but the intensity of 50mph winds for 8 hours. There were about 500,000 without power on Long Island at some point. We lost ours because a 100 year old tree fell about 8p Saturday night on the block over from us and took down a pole and the lines. It got fixed about 20 hours later which we thought a miracle. It is amazing when you cell phone is your "backup mode of communication".