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Accompanied by Sir Francis Whitmore, Lord Lieutenant of

Essex, Queen Elizabeth II visits an area of Essex abected
by Jooding. Boards have been laid down to prevent her
from getting her feet wet. February 13, 1953.

The Real “Storm Of The Century”: William Vanderson/Fox Photos/Getty Images

Photos From The North Sea Flood

Of 1953
By Kellen Perry | Edited By Austin Harvey
Published August 14, 2017 | Updated July 27, 2018

With hundreds dead and tens of thousands of properties

destroyed, this was one of Britain's worst natural disasters of the
20th century.

The Real “Storm Of The

Century”: Photos From The
North Sea Flood Of 1953

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O n February 1, 1953, an unlikely hero saved 27 lives in the Norfolk,

England resort of Hunstanton following the North Sea Jood, one of
the region's worst natural disasters of the 20th century.

U.S. Airman Reis Leming, 22, was at the nearby Sculthorpe air base when he
heard about the disaster. Although he couldn't swim, Leming left the base
and risked his own life to venture into icy North Sea water more than a
dozen feet above mean sea level — the result of high tides, hurricane-force
winds, and waves reaching 16 feet and toppling defenses weakened by
World War II.

Lincolnshire Flooding (1953)

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About 100 miles away in the seaside town of Jaywick, 13-year-old Harry
Francis was struggling to Wnd higher ground with his family in their
bungalow. "The Wrst thing I remember was my arm falling out of my bed into
freezing cold water, being told to get up quick and get dressed," he told the
BBC in 2013.

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His parents smashed a hole in the ceiling so the family could crawl out and
wait to be rescued in the loft space above. "That's when we realized how
bad it was," Francis continued. "The water was only a couple of inches below
the ceiling. We all just sat on rafters."

Flooding forced 30,000 people like the Francis family to Jee their homes.
When the clouds parted, the picture was bleak indeed, according to
Alexander Hall, writing in Arcadia:

"In England there were 1,200 breaches of sea defenses, 140,000 acres
of land were Gooded, 32,000 people were evacuated, 24,000
properties were damaged, 46,000 livestock were killed, and 307
people died. In the Netherlands, approximately 100,000 people were
 evacuated, 340,000 acres were Gooded, 47,300 buildings were 
damaged, 30,000 livestock were killed, and 1,836 lives were lost."

Among the 307 dead in the U.K were the teenage Harry Francis' neighbors:
"Out of the back of our bungalow we were calling to a family and this family
were calling back to us. And then they stopped calling and we thought they
had been rescued. But they hadn't. They had all drowned."

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Following airman Leming's noble eborts to beat back the death toll, the
people of Hunstanton never forgot him. A bus and street were named in the
Oregon native's honor, and when he was engaged to his childhood
sweetheart, the people of Hunstanton insisted on hosting the wedding at
their small Roman Catholic church.

The gallery above captures the devastation and rescue eborts following this
historic Jood in the U.K., and obers a glimpse across the sea to the horriWc
damage done in the low-lying Netherlands, where the government was then
forced to create an elaborate system of dams and storm barriers to ward ob
anything so devastating from happening ever again.

Still curious? Discover the most devastating natural disasters of the 21st
century. Then, explore the Jooded ruins of a modern-day Atlantis.

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Kellen Perry 
Kellen Perry is a veteran writer on topics including television, history, music, art, video games, and
food. His work has also appeared on Grunge, Ranker, and Looper.

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