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.

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