News staff from the Ipswich Star were on flood alert this morning, watching the rising tide at key points along the Suffolk coast.

While north Norfolk was reporting a story on a “great escape” for early editions, the high tide further south was not due until after 10am, which meant the Star could bring readers the latest news and pictures.

An online appeal for pictures and news has brought instant results with readers supplementing staff photos.

A multi-edition policy was running this morning and the last deadline would be this afternoon, to bring the full story.

The Star’s website, www.eveningstar.co.uk, was keeping readers posted throughout the night as the newsroom went into “gold” mode, a game plan prepared for major breaking news. That meant the news editor Jess Gallagher concentrating on the floods story with the team split to cover flood news and other news.

Stories included the Prime Minister’s three Cobra meetings, news of evacuations, memories of the floods of 1953, information on closed schools and closed roads, advice on being prepared for the emergency, and breaking news this morning of residents watching the waters rise and break the banks of rivers and estuaries.

Up to nine pages of coverage was being planned for today.

Editor Nigel Pickover said: “Jess has worked through the night. It’s been difficult but we are prepared for big stories like this.

“We have got reporters and photographers at every point we need to be at, from Yarmouth to Felixstowe, and there’s been something of a website bonanza.

“We’ll go on until the early afternoon today. Although there are three hours to go, it looks as though we could be reporting on a great escape – we hope so.

“We’re at the centre of this story wholly because of the clock and the tide times.

“It is different to 1953, when a lot of lives were lost, in that that happened during the hours of darkness. There has also been a fantastically organised police operation which appears to have worked.”

The area affected this morning was covered mainly by Archant papers, from the Norfolk weeklies to the Norwich Evening News, Eastern Daily Press, the Great Yarmouth Mercury and the Lowestoft Journal.

As the tide was due to reach its peak in Lowestoft, Russell Cook, editor of the Lowestoft Journal, said although the scene was dramatic, today’s surge did not appear to be the catastrophe the town had feared.

He said: “We have had the police helicopter up looking at the harbour mouth because the water is very, very high there. It’s been very close to coming over the harbour’s edge. It was quite a sight when I was coming into work over the Bascule bridge.

“It’s the highest that I have ever seen it.

“People have been very calm about it. There have been rescue centres set up, but there doesn’t appear to be many people who have used them. People have been prepared to tough it out.”