The Great Storm of 1703. Source

Which storms are the BBC referring to?

October 1987: "The worst storms... for nearly three centuries". Source: Adam Curtis - The Attic

And from 1952, which earlier flood did the reporter mean?

From The Lynmouth Flood Disaster - A Dark Day in Devon's History:

the meteorological system which hit Exmoor 65 years ago causing the biggest, most tragic, flooding event the region has seen in more than 300 years.

Many accounts of eastern England's history mention destructive sea and electrical storms 300 years ago. From Abraham de la Pryme's account of changes to the southern Humber shoreline in Diary of a Yorkshire Antiquary and his account of the burning of Grimsby from the sky to Adrian Gray's Hidden Lincolnshire.

Couple those accounts with 18th and 19th century accounts a ruined eastern England and imagery of its vegetation-covered ruins to appreciate the scale of the destruction.

Some thought the Great Storm of 26 November 1703 was God's punishment for England's cowardice while fighting the Holy Roman Empire. That may be more true than it seems to secular thinkers but, regardless, the Great Storm of 1703 was:

the first weather event to be a news story on a national scale

Although it is forgotten today.

14 years later came the vast Christmas Flood of 1717:

Just a little coastal problem. Source

The Christmas Flood of 1717 devastated the North Sea coasts of Holland, Germany and Denmark. Incredibly, it left England untouched.

Or, perhaps it left England's history books untouched. Bob Ogley on the 1987 Great Storm again:

Not the first storm to wipe away. Source: Adam Curtis - The Attic

It was as if the whole of the past of English history had been wiped away in just a few hours.

Indeed.

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