I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking. The verb choice is not much different than “kill” other than it focuses more on removal from the earth. Reasonable local flood interpretations (assuming one accepts biblical authority) include: (1) taking the universal language (all, every, the earth) as hyperbole (as done by Longman and Walton); (2) understand “earth” to be “land” (i.e., a limited region); (3) taking “earth” as the known world from the author’s perspective; or (4) taking “earth” to be the world that the author cares about (though he technically knows of other peoples beyond this scope). Of course, one could understand the Bible to be teaching a universal (i.e., global) flood, but consider it mistaken due to modern scientific and historical knowledge.