At 7pm on Thursday night, Steven Connelly was sitting at home with his wife Jackie. By 8pm, half of his house had disappeared into the sea, obliterated by the biggest storm surge to hit Britain in 60 years. “It’s devastating. We’re in a state of shock,” said Mr Connelly, 54, standing outside the now empty plot on the Hemsby cliffs he had called home for the past seven years. His was one of several houses in the Norfolk town washed into the North Sea or damaged beyond repair by the raging waters. Even the local lifeboat station, a sturdy brick building, was consumed by the violent surge, its fragments strewn across the beach on Friday. Hundreds of communities along Britain’s east coast were pounded by the storm surge on Thursday night, in which a deep depression coincided with spring tides to threaten sea defences. The worst affected areas were Boston…