I knew that the newspaper (the Independent, I think - I just saw it in a shop) was overstating it, but, really, I don't think it matters. Something doesn't have to be the biggest or the worst to still be pretty awful. (Maybe by "modern history" it meant "within living memory of me, the reporter"? Maybe it shows something about the modern world that newspapers always want to show that this is the biggest or greatest or worst... whatever since... whatever.) To someone who's lost their house, it doesn't really matter if it's the 950th worst flood ever, it's still the one that affects them.

I had a holiday in Lynmouth when I was a teenager, and remember being really moved and horrified by accounts of its flood - and really impressed by the huge channel they'd built for their small river, to try to stop it happening again.