A team of weekly journalists pulled together what is believed to be the first special edition in their title’s history to report the devastating floods to hit Cumbria.

The Times and Star staff had put the latest edition to bed on Thursday night only to be greeted with the one of the biggest stories to hit their patch in decades.

Before daybreak on Friday morning, not long after the latest edition was in the shops of Workington, Cockermouth and Maryport, reporters headed out to the scene of a collapsed bridge and the countless streets where hundreds were being left homeless.

Despite traffic chaos and countless police roadblocks, the team, some of whom had come in on days off, managed to make it back to the office in Workington to produce the reports for the special edition.

By 3.30pm the paper was on the press, featuring most of the same pages as the edition which was in shops Friday but with a new front page (above) and three inside pages of flooding coverage.

The new pages told of the death of traffic policeman Pc Bill Barker, who was standing on the Northside Bridge when it collapsed, and the rescues of hundreds of people from their homes in Workington and Cockermouth.

Over the weekend the team have continued speaking to victims and gathering more news and pictures for a 12-page special (right) which hit shops today.

Editor Steve Johnston said: “Some people have said this flood is of biblical proportions and it’s certainly the biggest major incident this area has seen for decades.

“As such, as a local newspaper we feel we need to reflect that and support the community”.

Elsewhere in the county, staff at the Carlisle-based Cumberland News also produced a re-worked weekly edition on Friday, while a special early edition of the daily News & Star was produced today.

Journalists from the CN Group have also been providing round-the-clock coverage on the web, in addition to a live blog which ran on Thursday and Friday at the height of the deluge.

Ian Brogden, online editor for Cumbrian Newspapers, which publishes the News & Star and The Cumberland News, said: “We realised that people needed information as quickly as possible because of the scale of the situation.

“The live blog allowed us to give updates as soon as we received them, after which we could work on the full stories and post them as usual on our normal website.

“It also enabled people to help each other. As someone posted up a question, for example about road conditions in a certain place, others answered it because they lived there. We also had the police feeding emergency details directly in as well.”

Ian said the live blog attracted more than 5,300 unique users and 2,130 reader comments.

Comments

Sam Holliday, Bath (23/11/2009 10:29:56)
Well done to Steve and his reporting team for this. I think as an industry we are really hard on ourselves sometimes but this kind of effort proves that when it comes down to it we still deliver.
Credit all round to the Times and Star team.

John Fuller (23/11/2009 11:53:29)
I’m one of the reporters at the T&S and it has been a privilege to be part of the biggest story to hit our patch in many years.
It has been a real team effort to put out two special editions and heartbreaking listening to the stories of loss from our devastated readers.

hacker (23/11/2009 14:26:01)
Hats off to all of you. Well done.

Ian (23/11/2009 15:23:04)
Well done to all of you. Tellingly this story hasn’t been met with the waves of cynical comments some of the more positive stories about our industry on here have attracted lately.

Hazel Nicholls (23/11/2009 15:59:25)
Well done to everyone concerned for all the hard work you’ve put in during this difficult time.

The “Grim Reaper” photographer (23/11/2009 17:20:56)
It is good to see destruction and disaster has not gone out of fashion and is still happening locally, keep use all in a job. keep up the great work steve. P.S. Any chance of some photography work 😉

bluffbrough (23/11/2009 18:04:06)
Well done you guys on the T&S, just remember when the axe falls on the next round of cuts the boys up on the top floor won’t think twice about throwing you onto the scrapheap. You did’nt really think anyone in charge of the balance sheet will give a damn about your hard work and going the extra mile ,DID YOU!!!

chris felton (24/11/2009 09:55:41)
the government can do a lot more to stop thease floods happening there are lots of innovative flood defences that are cost effective they just need to be tried www.arkflooddefences.com