Worst coastal surge for 30 years?

[OhYouMerryLittleKitten]

So r4 reports the environment agency as saying for this afternoon right down the east coast to Essex. Just eating my breakfast so will dig out the relevant info in a little bit.

at the news on the radio, while I was cooking tea. Talking about Great Yarmouth being evacuated, adding, afterwards that "Northern Ireland, Scotland and Norhtern England have also been hit by the weather".

This is why we had those grumbling threads after last month's storms, down South.

1804: Residents in the Faversham Road area of Seasalter, Kent, are being strongly advised to evacuate their homes to stay with relations or friends where possible because of flooding fears. The council has been in the area today providing advice to residents and advising them to evacuate this evening or take other precautions.

The Thames can top its banks Quintessential. I don't think it tends to be very bad though (slow presumably in comparison with the surge??). Xmas day there was localised flooding near me as the Thames B was shut. I've also got my feet wet in Putney when some water came over the top as well, about 15 years ago. Certainly in central London the river banks are well protected, I think the biggest issue is that it can make sewers back up. Pleasant.

Would love to know more about this though as am no expert - just going off a couple of personal experiences.

DH is at flood control in Norwich tonight (until 6am). They've already evacuated several north norfolk villages and parts of Great Yarmouth ad moved them to rest centres.

It's very very windy in N Norfolk at the moment.

Ouryve
Not so sure about that. East Anglia often gets ignored. Especially the poorer and rural areas.

I can well understand your gripe, ouryve. There often seems to be an imbalance in reporting of weather conditions.

I know it's a Daily Mail link, but at least they're doing national coverage, and they have some informative pictures - the one of Whitehaven harbour is scary:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518340/UK-weather-Britain-battered-Arctic-storms-114mph-winds-cause-worst-coastal-surges-SIXTY-YEARS.html

Think I may go and check on Putney Bridge tomorrow. We live up the hill, but ds2s school is by the river.

Been looking at pics/news reports of where I used to live (south cumbria)and the flooding there has been worse than I ever remember

In Cleethorpes. I live in one of the highest risk areas. No warnings that we were a particularly high risk area until 4pm. Not happy.

MissBeehiving, DH is currently at flood control, waiting for instructions.

I think Norfolk has featured heavily on the news reports, particularly GY and surrounding areas, because it has had the most serious flood warnings. Certainly earlier this afternoon, they had 25 serious (risk of loss of life) warnings across Norfolk while other areas had none at all.

It was the casual add on at the end of the bulletin that annoyed me. It came across as so dismissive, even if it wasn't intentional, given the brevity of a 6 music news bulletin.

ouryve, this could be the worst in 60 years. There was a good amount of coverage of the storms in scotland/north of England earlier, the news has switched to where the severe weather is now currently happening - a lot of coverage of Newcastle and Lincoln at present as far as I can see.

I'm catching up on he rolling news channels (between episodes of TBBT) - Wells under several feet of water, though the flood gate has held and part of town is OK.

Frightnow, thats because i think its even more severe than expected unfortunately. you were under a warning but its worse than feared so far.

Lots of pics of Rhyl too on the news.

I don't agree ouuyve. I'm Northern and have complained long and loud about the southern bias to the news so I agree with your general point. However, now I live in Norfolk and have to say that by and large East Anglia gets ignored in a similar fashion. We're 'Eastern England' which is an entirely different region to 'South East England'

I've been quite surprised at how heavily the Great Yarmouth evacuation has featured in tonight's coverage but I think that's because actual mass evacuation is taking place making it a big story.

Also there is a lot of comparisons with the floods of 53. Out of the 350ish people who died, 300 or so were from East Anglian counties.

The news I am watching now is balanced, bit in norfolk, Clapton, Cleethorpes, Rhyl...

ouryve coverage has followed the storm: from 5 am to start of Chancellor's statement, SKY was solid Scottish reporting. Mix in first part of afternoon. By 5ish, complete switch to places that are being hit now (Wales and England - here's a lot of coverage of Rhyl, which seems to have been badly hit, with sea defences breached).

I think it could be quite serious Showy - the water has come over the quay at Blakeney and Walcott and high tide isn't expected at GY until 10.30pm.

listening to BBC Norfolk. Sounds like its about to breach in Kings lynn.

9when I say breach, wall sounds intact but is beginning to over top)

Many of the villages flooded in 1953 don't have any flood defences.

BBC has just reported breach of defences in Boston: 18,000 households to evacuate.

Lincolnshire is of course another place that normally never features on the news...