PAMELA PORTER was 13 years old and living in a beach-side cottage with her parents and younger brother on Sea Wall, Whitstable, at the time of the flood.

"As a family we had seen the sea in all its moods, but nothing like this," she said. "The tide raced up the beach and came over the sea wall, which had only been in place for a short time.

"Waves, driven by a howling wind, were hitting the cottage and driving water through the back door, the front door and the side door and cellar, bringing piles of shingle with it."

Although the water drained away into lower parts of the town, it left a slimy, smelly mess made up of mud, shingle and sewage. Electricity and gas supplies had been cut off and they were warned not to drink the water.

Mrs Porter and her brother stayed with an aunt for a time and it took weeks before their home was anywhere near normal.

"The Lord Mayor of London set up a relief fund and I can remember being given a parcel.

"The kitchens at the Sir William Nottidge School, which had opened the year before, were used to provide hot food for the rescuers and those who had no cooking facilities."

Mrs Porter described the experience as horrible and felt the same way when she and her husband saw the devastating affects of flooding while on holiday in Prague last year.

Barry Tilley was the same age as Mrs Porter and living in Harbour Place before it became part of Woodlawn Street. People in the area were used to floods when the backwater, since covered to make the Gorrell Tank, overflowed during heavy rain.

"We saw the water in the street and protected the front door with sandbags, like we always did," he said. "Then we saw water in the back garden and knew it was more serious."

That Sunday was his first day as a paper boy and although the papers did not arrive until later in the day, he and his brother delivered them in the afternoon and were criticised for the delay.

"I was a pupil at the Nottidge and we all went into school on the Monday," he said. The only children who could not make it were those in Blean.

"They had time off because the coaches which brought them in could not get through."