Cambridgeshire rescue crews 'relentless' in Storm Babet response
But the service says more support from other services may be needed in future
Cambridgeshire fire and rescue crews are hoping more support can be put in place to help during extreme weather events in future.
More than 1,500 calls were recorded by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk's joint control room during Storm Babet last Friday, making it their busiest 24-hour period on record.
The storm caused heavy rainfall across the county, with motorists facing disruption on the roads.
Simon Newton is an area commander at Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service:
"It was absolutely relentless; everybody we could fit into our control room was working to full capacity," he said.
"We normally work with about 6 work stations and increased that to nine, and everyone did a phenomenal job in response to that (Storm Babet).
"I think the issue we have with these incredibly large incidents is the fire and rescue service can only respond, and hopefully there's other things put in place to try and mitigate some of the damage caused by spate incidents like heat or flooding."
Call handlers deal with almost 10 times the 24-hour average
Between 2020-22, Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service received an average of 69 calls to its fire control room within a 24-hour period, with 37 incidents recorded in a day.
However, on October 20 staff dealt with more than 640 incidents.
The overall response exceeded last year's summer heatwave, when call handlers received more than 1,200 calls during July and August.
"By the Saturday afternoon and evening, it had started to slow down for us and we were much more back to business by the Sunday whereas summer conditions last year ran on for a couple of months," said Mr Newton.
"Understanding a lot of time, regardless of how we try, we're not going to have a massive impact, but it's about answering those calls and providing people with help where we can."