Flooding in Carlisle meant the News & Star had to abandon Saturday’s edition – the first time the title had failed to appear in more than 40 years.

Staff at the paper had been working on coverage of the floods when its office, along with the rest of Carlisle, was hit by a power cut – leaving its presses redundant and resulting in the “edition that never was”.

Deputy editor Nick Turner said: “We have generators here but they don’t give enough power for the press, and after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing we had to admit defeat.

“Our communication link to Barrow, where we have another press, was also knocked out.

“Staff who have worked here for 40 years can’t remember another time when we didn’t get the paper out.”

The flood water also damaged the homes of many of the paper’s staff, with photographer Paula Paisley being the worst hit.

Rising water meant fire crews had to rescue her husband and two young children (above) as the ground floor of their home was submerged, and the family are now staying with relatives.

Following Saturday’s events, the News & Star pulled out all the stops to produce a flood disaster special edition on Monday.

More than 20 reporters, sub-editors and photographers gave a team effort to produce 34 pages of flood coverage, documenting how countless homes have been wrecked, how the clean-up operation has begun and reporting on the tragic deaths of three people as a result of the floods.

The News & Star’s website has also been kept constantly updated, and received 300,000 page impressions on Sunday – more than 15 times what it would normally get.

Nick said: “The website has been kept running live and has been updated minute by minute.

“It’s been an incredible 48 hours. It has ranged from the chaos of Saturday and the disappointment of not being able to get the paper out to the real team effort on the special edition and the satisfaction of a job well done.”