Yes, East Tilbury carries serious flood risk, and the Thames is only part of it. About a third of postcodes sit in the highest-probability river-and-sea zone. Four in five are flagged high on at least one flood measure. The climate-adjusted map takes in roughly the same four in five. Where the risk is highest, the model shows nothing standing in the water's way.
On the Environment Agency's river-and-sea flood zones, about 36% of East Tilbury's postcodes are in Zone 3, the band with the highest chance of flooding in any year. Another 18% fall in Zone 2, the medium-probability fringe that starts where Zone 3 stops. The two bands do not overlap, so the smaller Zone 2 figure is extra ground on top of Zone 3. St Catherine's, the parish church, was built in the 12th century surrounded by tidal marshland, so the arrangement between East Tilbury and its water is older than most of the paperwork about it.
There is no separate surface-water share for East Tilbury on its own. Rain that cannot drain away is counted inside the combined postcode measure further on, which is where it shows up.
The Environment Agency's climate-adjusted flood zone, its forward look at where the river-and-sea risk reaches once a changing climate is allowed for, takes in about 81% of East Tilbury's postcodes. That is the map a planning officer reads when someone wants to build, and it covers most of the place.
Insurance follows the maps. A home in Zone 3, or on the climate-adjusted map, can expect an insurer to ask more questions and quote a higher premium, and some will decline outright. Running the exact address through the Environment Agency's long-term flood risk service and getting an indicative buildings quote both belong at the start of the process, while walking away still costs nothing.
The combined postcode measure counts a postcode if it reaches a given level on any one of several flood indicators, surface water included alongside rivers and sea. On that basis about 81% of East Tilbury's postcodes reach high on at least one, about 75% reach medium and about 73% reach low. The bands overlap, because one postcode can hit high on one indicator and low on another. A postcode that clears one test can still fail the next, which is why a single reassuring line in a set of sales particulars covers less than it seems to.
The defence question is the one that matters most here. In the Environment Agency's modelled flood extents, about 36% of East Tilbury's postcodes fall in the high-risk extent with no defence present in the model, and none falls in the high-risk extent with a defence recorded. Another 45% are in the low-risk extent, also undefended. A defence in the model would not make a house safe in any case. Here the model has nothing to offer either way, and that should shape how anyone talks about the high ground and the low.
The nearest tide gauge with a long record is at Dover, where sea level rose by about 2.2 millimetres a year between 1961 and 2010. That is the rate measured at that gauge over those years, and it describes the past.
No postcode in East Tilbury falls inside a recorded historic flood outline. A clean record helps, and it is welcome. It also covers only what was measured and written down, and a marsh village by the Thames has had plenty of years when nobody was keeping score.
Flood is East Tilbury's weakest point by some distance: most of the place is on the climate-adjusted map, a third is in the top zone, and on the high-risk ground the model records nothing standing between the river and the houses.