The biggest rescue effort in peacetime Britain

Sky News quotes the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union as saying:

"We have witnessed the biggest rescue effort in peacetime Britain by our emergency services and it's not over yet."

I wonder if this is right.

The Eastern Daily Press website has a very good feature on the East Coast floods of 1953 which, I suspect, were far more serious than any we are experiencing at the moment.

Incidentally, Wells railway station - which is pictured on the first page of the EDP feature - is now a pottery and secondhand bookshop. The line to Hunstanton never reopened after the floods.