Yes, though the risk comes from rain, and the river barely figures. None of Dagenham is in the river-and-sea flood zones. About seven in ten postcodes still rate high on at least one flood measure. Surface water is what puts them there. The Thames is the headline flood risk in this part of London, and here it is the one that doesn't show up.
On the Environment Agency's river-and-sea mapping, 0% of Dagenham's postcodes are in flood zone 3, the highest-probability band, and 0% are in flood zone 2, the medium-probability fringe that lies beyond it. The two zones are separate bands, and here both are empty. "Outside the flood zones" is accurate for Dagenham, and it is also the line most likely to appear in a sales listing and least likely to describe the risk a buyer will be insuring.
The risk shows up on the other measures. With the river-and-sea zones empty, the high ratings come from indicators that track other kinds of flooding, surface water among them. About 69% of Dagenham's postcodes rate high on at least one of those. Surface water flooding happens when heavy rain arrives faster than the ground and the drains can take it, and it can pick out one street and leave the next one dry.
Looking ahead, the Environment Agency's climate-adjusted flood zone covers less than 1% of the area's postcodes. That projection concerns rivers and the sea, and on that front the picture stays almost unchanged.
For insurance, the useful figures are the surface-water ratings. Insurers price individual addresses, and a high surface-water rating can push up premiums or excesses even where the river-and-sea maps are clear. Get a buildings insurance quote on the exact address early in the process, because the quote will reflect the street-level rating the town-wide figures can't show.
Across the postcode measures as a whole, about 69% of Dagenham's postcodes rate high on at least one indicator, about 69% medium on at least one, and about 84% low on at least one. Each figure counts a postcode if any one of several measures puts it in that band, so the same postcode can appear in all three, and the shares overlap rather than adding up.
The Environment Agency's modelled flood extents put 0% of postcodes in the high-risk outline without defences and 0% in it with defences in place. In other words, the model shows no river or sea defences protecting Dagenham homes, because its river and tidal outlines don't reach the area at all. "Defended" only ever means a defence appears in the model, and here the question doesn't arise.
The nearest tide gauge with a long record is at Dover, where the sea rose by about 2 millimetres a year between 1961 and 2010. That is the rate the gauge measured over those years, at a station some way down the coast.
The Environment Agency's record of historic flood outlines shows no recorded flooding in Dagenham. The worst flood in the town's history, the 1707 breach of the Thames embankment, drowned the marshes beside the river, and nothing on the modern record covers these streets. Having no recorded flood is reassuring, though it only means none has been mapped.
Flood risk is a real weakness in Dagenham, and it comes from the sky. The river is the risk people expect here, and the rain is the one buyers will find on their insurance quotes.