Police Officers Charles Lewis and Leonard Deptford received George Medals for their part in rescue work; Charles Lewis leapt from the Police Station upper window to save an elderly couple being swept away in the floodwater, carrying them to a house across the road to safety, then continuing rescue work for several hours until he found a working telephone to call for help. Leonard Deptford was off-duty at his son's party when the wall of water hit. He realised the elderly were vulnerable as the Roman bank was breached and he dragged and carried many to safety. At one house he found a bedridden elderly couple with their middle-aged daughter; in the waist-high floodwater, he lashed together oil cans to make a raft, to which he tied the couple and pulled them to safety. He carried on until the next day, his last rescue a dog. In individual incidents, 41 died at Felixstowe in Suffolk when wooden prefabricated homes in the West End area of the town were flooded. In Essex, Canvey Island was inundated, with the loss of 58 lives. Another 37 died when the seafront village of Jaywick near Clacton was flooded. Reis Leming, a US airman, was awarded the George Medal for his bravery in rescuing 27 people in the South Beach area of Hunstanton. In East London, water poured from the Royal Docks into Silvertown, where it drained into the sewers but flooded back in Canning Town and Tidal Basin. William Hayward, a night watchman at William Ritchie & Son, died of exposure to gas from a damaged pipe; he was the only fatality. Almost 200 people were homeless and took refuge at Canning Town Public Hall. The village of Creekmouth at the mouth of the Roding was completely flooded by the sea surge, and the village was entirely demolished soon after, with residents relocated elsewhere in Barking. The total death toll on land in the UK is estimated at 307. The total death toll at sea for the UK, including the , is estimated at 224. Total damages were estimated to be £50 million (£ million today). The coastal defence of Flanders was severely damaged. Near Ostend, Knokke and Antwerp, heavy damage was done to the sea defence with local breaches. Twenty-eight people died, including noted Belgian musician Robert Dubois. After the 1953 flood, governments realised that similar infrequent but devastating events were possible in the future. In the Netherlands the government conceived and constructed an ambitious flood defence system beginning in the 1960s.