Flooding

Throughout the evening, freak winds and a swelling tide pushed the sea to dangerous levels. Flood defences were breached by huge waves and coastal towns in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Kent (click on map, right) were devastated as sea water rushed into the streets. Over 300 people lost their lives and over 24,000 houses were flooded.

Around 40,000 people were evacuated from their homes. Many of these had to sit the freezing cold night out on their rooftops, awaiting rescue by fire brigades, the police, military personnel and the RNLI. The subsequent clean up operations took weeks to complete at a huge cost.

50 years on...
January 2003 marked the 50^th anniversary of those events. Though major advances in flood protection have been made since then, the danger of coastal flooding remains. In particular, the effects of climate change mean that the chances of storms and high tides coinciding has increased.

Today, the Environment Agency faces the considerable challenges of both protecting coastal communities against potential flooding and warning and advising the public should the worst be unavoidable.

On the pages below, we look back at the events of January 31.