No one had expected the devastation wrought by the floods which hit the region almost exactly five years ago.

The eyes of the nation turned to the Aire Valley when the Rivers Aire and Worth burst their banks, deluging villages with millions of gallons of filthy water.

The unprecedented scale of the chaos forced some fast improvisations: firefighters used pleasure boats from Bradford's Lister Park to reach trapped householders, village halls and leisure centres became emergency shelters and the council set up the biggest control room since the Bradford City fire disaster.

It was many months before some affected householders could return to their houses, and up to two years before others could return damp-ridden homes to normality.

Stockbridge was worst hit. In a single night the water level rose five feet above normal, cutting the area off and forcing 400 people to spend the night in Keighley Leisure Centre.

A picture of flooding also emerged in Bingley, Menston, Baildon and Skipton, where people were forced from their homes by rising water levels.

The existing flood defences proved inadequate during that autumn 2000, one of the wettest on record.

But much has changed, with the Government spending £3 million on flood defences designed to prevent the area from flooding for up to 100 years.

David Wilkes, the Environment Agency flood risk manager for the Ridings, was at the scene as soon as the floods struck.

He said: "I have never seen anything of the severity of what happened. It was unprecedented. We got the forecast from the Met Office and got a warning out to local people." Mr Wilkes said the agency worked 24 hours a day in preparation for possible flooding, with staff on standby. But nothing prepared them for the massive deluge of rain about to hit Yorkshire.

"The first I knew we were really in trouble was when I got a phone call at 3am to say the River Worth, at Stockbridge, was coming over the banks and there were reports of floods in Skipton," he said.

"I was in the office for 4am and first checked to see what would happen lower down the river."

He then rushed to Stockbridge to talk to people flooded out of their homes, who were sheltering in Victoria Hall.

"It was a very distressing sight -- a room of people in a state of shock," he said.

"Many were angry about what had happened. Emotions were running high but Bradford Council and partners did a wonderful job, providing temporary accommodation and generally looking after people.

"It was really gratifying to see the community pulling together. Once people calmed down they realised they needed each other's help."

Work to shore up damaged defences began immediately.

"We set about doing emergency repairs to a defence wall someone had partially knocked down to allow water to escape," he said.

"We received help from our colleagues in Preston, who helped out in Skipton, and Kendal, which dealt with the Keighley area, while the local workforce got on with emerging hotspots."

New defences have twice been tested following heavy rain, and have twice held fast.

"There will be a time when it will rain for longer and rain heavier, but we now wouldn't expect water to come over the top more often than once in 100 years," said Mr Wilkes.

"If you're a horse racing person, there's a 100 to one chance of flooding."

The agency's flood defence work at Stockbridge included raising an existing steel sheetpile wall at the back of Florist Street and building a new flood wall to the Bridge Inn car park.

Flood-proofing work was carried out on commercial buildings between the Bridge Inn and Bradford Road bridge, while an earth embankment was raised between the River Aire and River Worth, and an access ramp was constructed allowing vehicles access to the river and for drainage work if defences were swamped.

Flood defence work has also included helping communities to take control of their own protection. Flood relief development worker Glen Miller has been given £60,000 for at-risk communities to draw together action plans aimed at cutting the odds of flooding hitting them again.

Mr Miller has set about pulling community members together to educate them on flood-related issues, and to act as a link in getting responses from Bradford Council, the Environment Agency, Yorkshire Water and British Waterways.

The Environment Agency is using the fifth anniversary of the flooding to launch a campaign raising public awareness of the risks of flooding.

Officers are warning that reducing the risk of flooding is more than just building defences and that residents cannot afford to be complacent. "While we can reduce the effects of floods through awareness, education and investment in flood defences, we can never prevent flooding altogether," said Mr Wilkes.

"That is why we are urging people to be aware and to help themselves to try and reduce the massive financial and emotional costs of flooding."

Agency research reveals a third of people in flood risk areas had not checked whether their buildings and contents insurance covered flood damage. Only 7 per cent knew how to get flood warnings from the Environment Agency, while just over 40 per cent admitted they would not know what to do in a flood.