In the early hours of this morning, one of the biggest storm surges since January 1953 came down the east coast caused by low pressure and high winds. Combined with above average high tides warnings were sent out that seas an estimated 3 metres above normal could top defences and potentially cause massive flooding along the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts.

Luckily, the surge missed the high tide by a matter of minutes, the sea level rise was approx 20cm less han forecast, and most experts believe disaster was missed by a hairs breadth.

Still damage was done, and as the Telegraph reports devastation was caused just up the coast from us at Walcott with the sea wall damaged, windows smashed and walls pushed over.

I was at the old ramp at Happisburgh at just after 7 this morning, two hours after high tide but the surge was still being felt. The sea was crashing over the top of the revetments that are around 4 metres about nornal high tide. We were lucky that there wasn’t more north in the wind to put more energy in the swell so instead of lapping at the base of the cliff it would have smashed - but still one of the storage buildings to the south of the old ramp finally went over.

Despite a noisy stormy night, the bulk of Happisburgh survived relatively unscathed, as it is likely to do in the future as our cliffs keep the rough sea away from the village as they have for millenia. But our neighbours of Walcott to the North and Eccles to the south have to rely on partificial protection from concrete sea walls, and as we know locally all too well the plan is to stop repairing them.

What will happen next time we have a surge of this size? It is sure that Happisburgh will survive but I dread to think what will happen to surrounding communities if the sea has a real chance at low lying areas or the broads.

We cannot just abandon our sea defences without helping our coastal communities adapt to the risk of incidents like this and the loss of their security, and until they have adapted we cannot stop maintaining the defences. We cannot afford for what almost happened this morning to become a reality.