Recalculated for today, the flood would have cost a staggering UKĀ£13 billion, according to weather and tsunami experts at a recent forum in Newport, Wales.
Dr Claire Souch, director of model management at Risk Management Solutions, said, "We've run a variety of simulations of a storm surge coming up the Bristol Channel today and in the worst case scenario the flood heights would be so high, they would over-top existing defences and cause flooding over an extremely large area."
