Storm Desmond Footage Shows Coastguard Helicopter Rescuing Trapped Family From Flooded Home

Watch Helicopter Save Family From Desmond Floods
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The video shows one of the extraordinary rescues the coastguard conducted in Cumbria, as the aftermath of Storm Desmond overwhelms the county.

Emergency services in the north of England are becoming increasingly stretched as the Army has been drafted in to help cope with floods.

Strong winds and heavy rain tore through Britain and a major incident was declared in Cumbria, the worst affected county.

The coastguard uploaded this video showing its helicopter rescuing a family of six from their home, winching them up one at a time to safety on Saturday night.

It shows the helicopter using the searchlight on the flooded house, after the flood water rose too high for them to escape, as one of the family members is brought up.

The helicopter crew, based in North Wales, were in Cumbria helping emergency services deal with the situation.

A spokesperson for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said:"The Coastguard search and rescue helicopter crew from Caernarfon in North Wales were involved for eight hours in the area assisting the other emergency services with a number of different incidents including this rescue of a family of six from their flooded home."

In Eamont Bridge, south of Penrith in Cumbria, 150 people were rescued by the Coastguard from a flooded static caravan park. The village of Braithwaite became completely cut off when its main bridge, the Coledale High Bridge, collapsed as the river burst its banks.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs minister Rory Stewart, who is also the Tory MP for Penrith and the Border, said flooding in his constituency has been "the worst that anybody's experienced" and acknowledged water had "overtopped" existing flood defences.

He told BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend: "We're going to look very, very carefully at all the defences up and down Cumbria for exactly that reason. This is a very extreme and unprecedented event, early indications suggest we've passed the UK record on rainfall in Cumbria."

Concerns are growing over an incident at the River Kent in Kendal as police wait for an Underwater Search Team to help them in a search for the elderly male believed to have fallen in the water.

Rescue and evacuation missions, which began on Saturday, continue in areas which have seen more than a month's rainfall over the last 24 hours.