The Great Stour Project - River and Coastal Flooding

THE GREAT FLOOD OF 1953

Engraved on the minds of many people living on the east coast of England is the freezing winter weekend of January 31 and February 1, 1953, when a high sea and high tide left a trail of death and disaster in the worst flooding in Britain this century.

During the night of January 31 floods claimed 307 lives, devastated 200,000 acres of farmland, swept cattle, horses, sheep and poultry to their deaths and made 21,000 people homeless. Not until the next morning was it realised that the greatest peacetime catastrophe in this country in living memory had struck a normally peaceful countryside. Over 100 more lives were lost at sea, and 1800 were lost in Holland.

A hurricane of terrific force lashed the North Sea into mountainous waves assaulting sea wall defences along 1,400 miles of coastline, causing damage running into millions of pounds. It was a weekend of horror and heroism during which men gave their lives in attempts to rescue flood-beleaguered victims. Many were later recognised in the Queen’s birthday honours, some posthumously.

It all began on Friday, January 30, when the Meteorological Office sent out a warning of deteriorating weather and of a depression moving down from the north well above the Hebrides.

But probably the only folk who took it seriously were skippers of small craft. By evening a gale running down both sides of the Scottish mainland and small coastal vessels scuttled for shelter.

The following morning the British Railways ferry steamer Princess Victoria (2,694 tons) left Stranraer at 7:45am for Larne in Ulster with 172 passengers and crew and some cars on the lower aft deck. What the passengers did not know was that the vessel was old and unseaworthy and this was to be her last voyage. There were only 44 survivors, 10 of whom were members of the crew.

The sinking of the Princess Victoria was only the first bad chapter in a weekend of disaster. The wind and the sea gathered momentum down the east coast of England during the Saturday and that night the wind reached a speed of 119 miles an hour in some places.

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