BBC - Suffolk Don't Miss - The 1953 East Coast Floods

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7 January 2010
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You are in: Suffolk » Don't Miss » 1953 East Coast Floods

31st January 2003
Eastern Electricity Board - the restoration of electricity supplies

EEB employees paddling across the floods

In September 1954 the Eastern Electricity Board produced a commemorative booklet which it sent to every member of staff who had been involved in the restoration work following the floods of 1953.

FACTS

1953 EAST COAST FLOODS:

307 people drowned

24,000 homes flooded

1,200 breaches along 1,000 miles of coastline

160,000 acres of farmland flooded

46,000 livestock lost

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Brenda Farrow contacted us as her Father, Anthony Hayward, had received one of these booklets. Mr Hayward was based at Badley sub station between Stowmarket and Needham Market.

Here are some extracts and photographs taken from this booklet (with permission from 24seven).

In his foreword Mr C T Melling, Chairman of Eastern Electricity Board says:

"It was a time of anxiety and alarm; there were many fatalities and much serious loss of public and private property and personal belongings. It was a time of heroic action and arduous work for all concerned in rescue, rehabilitation and the restoration of public services.

"One aspect of this work was the restoration of electricity supply to 47,000 premises in the flooded parts of the Eastern Electricity Board area.

"In retrospect, there is much to be learnt from a disaster of this magnitude and the government, Local Authorities and the Public Boards have all examined in detail their experiences of the flood and the measures taken to combat its effects in order that from the lessons of the past there may be greater security in the future."

Substation at Bawdsey Manor

The booklet goes on to say: "The effect on the electricity distribution system was disastrous. There could be no conceivable precautionary plans for dealing with such a catastrophe…

"…At the time of the disaster many of the Board’s engineers were already engaged in dealing with faults to the overhead system caused by the severe gales which preceded and accompanied the floods. Due also to these gales and to the floods the Post Office telephone system was severely dislocated and the Board’s VHF radio system was for a time the only means of communication available in some places."

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