Last updated 12:15, Monday, 27 October 2008

Cockermouth School became home to just under 100 victims of a severe storm on Saturday night.

Emergency co- ordinator Debbie Keir

They included 90 fell runners who came off the hills after being battered by rain and wind, and elderly residents who were evacuated from their homes in the town.

The operation was co-ordinated by Debbie Keir, of Allerdale council’s emergency planning unit, who was on duty for about 15 hours from 8pm.

She said: “Everything went extremely well. We plan for all eventualities and the last time this operation had to swing into action was at the Grayrigg train crash.

“There were people from all the emergency services, the Red Cross, St John Ambulance, the Salvation Army and the WRVS.

“We were given loads of food by Sainsburys and they would have given us more if we had needed it.”

The elderly residents had been evacuated from Waterloo Street, which runs alongside the River Derwent, at about 2.30am yesterday when their homes were threatened by rising water.

One explained: “I did not go to sleep because I thought we might have to be moved out. The fire and rescue service called in the middle of the night and took me to safety in a dinghy.

“We have been really well looked after here but I’m tired now. There was water in my street but I don’t think it got in the house like it did in 2005. I had to move into a flat for several months then.”

Other localised flooding occurred in Dearham, where heavy rain caused several inches of flooding in The Commercial Inn in Central Road.

The pub, which has a cellar six feet below ground level, started pumping out water at around 1pm.

Owner George Brown said he had installed two pumps because of previous problems with flooding.

“The water has been coming in through the walls,” he said.

“We were lucky to catch it in time. It was a few inches deep and we started pumping at around 1pm.”

In Holmrook, firefighters from Seascale were called out at around midnight after flooding on the main road threatened some properties.

Sandbags had been supplied earlier in the day to three homes but water did breach the Reading Room.

Firefighters worked throughout the night until 9am pumping water away.