STORM Gareth felt like he came crashing down on Cumbria overnight.

It was a sleepless night for many as strong winds, heavy downpours and thunder and lightning hit the county.

Today, river levels remain high and a Met Office yellow warning for wind remains in place.

Rickerby Park in Carlisle was closed last night due to flooding. The River Eden is now at a lower level but the storm has left its mark with debris scattered across the flood plain.

Electricity North West engineers worked through the night to restore power to 4,200 homes across the north west.

The electricity provider said they will be back out this morning working to restore the remaining 311 customers, which are mainly located in Barrow, Penrith and Ambleside.

The storm brought gales of 67mph along the coast  - with St Bees Head recording the strongest winds in England. Inland gusts of 57mph hit north Cumbria and Lancashire overnight which caused around 19 faults on the network across the region.

Chris Fox, incident manager for Electricity North West, said: “We were fully prepared for the disruption anticipated by Storm Gareth and we are always ready to respond to adverse weather conditions.

“We’re pleased that the network largely withstood the storm and I’m proud of our engineers working in difficult conditions overnight to restore power to the majority of customers.

“At the moment it’s business as usual on the network, but we’re still closely monitoring the weather and our teams will be back out this morning restoring power to the remaining customers as soon as possible.”

Electricity North West is urging people to stay safe and if they see any damage to overhead power lines to stay away and report it straight away.