Northern England and Scotland braced themselves for more heavy rain. Cumbria, which declared a major incident over the weekend, was the county worst affected by Storm Desmond, and the Met Office has issued a severe weather warning for rain across North West England and western Scotland this week.
More than 45 severe flood warnings are in place, meaning there is a danger to life, across the North West, along with dozens of less serious flood warnings and flood alerts over northern England and Wales.
An underwater search team recovered a body found in Kendal after reports that an elderly man had fallen into the River Kent on Sunday morning.
The discovery of the body in the River Kent comes after the death of 90-year-old Ernie Crouch, who was believed to have been blown into the side of a moving bus by strong winds near Finchley Central Tube station in London.
More than 2,000 homes and businesses in the county were flooded and almost 60,000 homes in the county were left without power throughout Sunday as the floods damaged substations and caused electrical faults. Electricity North West said around 2,600 properties in Cumbria remained without power on Monday morning because of 11 separate faults caused by flooding.
In Carlisle, the Army was sent to help support emergency services evacuating people from their homes in streets where cars were almost entirely submerged.
Around 40 schools remained closed, while the disruption led to the cancellation of appointments and routine business across NHS hospitals and services.
A meeting of the government’s emergency Cobra committee has agreed to look again at existing flood defences.
Cumbria County Council leader, Stewart Young, has called for an investigation into the county’s flood defences after £45m was invested since catastrophic floods in 2005. He said: “I will be talking to our local MPs and if the Environment Agency needs to revisit them then that’s what’s going to have to happen, because we can’t continue to have events like this in Cumbria, we just won’t be able to cope.”
Cumbria rain gauge figures showed a record amount fell in the 24 hours between Friday and Saturday evenings, with 13.4in (341mm) registered in Honister – more than a month’s worth of rain in just one day. Power has been restored to all homes in North Wales after heavy rain and wind left 700 without power on Saturday.
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