Residents in Longtown spent yesterday cleaning up after flood waters covered the roads, gardens, and driveways.

After a day of torrential rain, residents who live on Powdrake Crescent and Ladyseats Gardens found themselves facing flood water which is believed to have come from overflowing drains.

Ilene Forsyth, a resident of the area, said: “It was flowing, I mean you couldn’t see the path and you couldn’t see part of the grass.”

Flooding of this degree is such an uncommon occurrence that residents didn’t assume anything out of the ordinary was happening.

“Well, like quite a few of my neighbours, we met out here in pitch darkness stepping out with our bins last night and found ourselves up to our ankles in water,” commented resident Alan Melville.

“That was the first we learned of it.”

Elizabeth Ewart found the water had spread right across her garden to reach the steps leading up to her front door.

“The garden was like a lake, you couldn’t see the flower-beds.

“We’ve twice had floods but nothing like that.”

Longtown Fire Station was called to the scene of the flooding at 9.30pm where crews shifted a lot of the water and created a dam to protect Powdrake Crescent from surface water run-off.

They were also supported by Cumbria County Council and members of the public.

“The water was coming down the road into the crescent, so as you can see from the barrier that they have left, they were trying to stop it,” said Elizabeth.

“The drains were just overloaded and as long as it kept coming in, we were going to be flooded so they had to try and stop it coming in.”

Residents praised the quick response of the fire brigade and the support given by other members of the community in helping clear the drains.

“The fire brigade arrived fairly quickly and the lads did a brilliant job,” said Ilene.