Cumbria emergency services on major incident alert as Storm Isha hits

Rail services on the West Coast Main Line have been severely affected

Emergency services in Cumbria said they were on standby for a major incident as Storm Isha hit the UK.

Almost the whole of the country is under amber weather warnings for strong winds and thousands of homes have been left without power.

Operations at the Sellafield nuclear site were suspended as a precautionary measure amid the weather warnings.

The Environment Agency issued a number of flood warnings and alerts across the county after heavy rainfall.

Sellafield said the suspension of operations allowed it to "safely shut down our operational plants to prepare for predicted worsening weather conditions this evening".

It said operations were expected to resume on Monday and there were no safety or security issues.

In the past, Sellafield's activities included generating electricity and reprocessing spent fuel. Now it is mainly used for the treatment and storage of nuclear waste.

• Latest updates as Storm Isha sweeps in

Cumbria Police said multi-agency preparations had been under way for several days.

However, it added the response was "now being placed on a higher official footing to ensure public safety".

In a statement, it warned the county could see winds of up to 80mph (128km/h) with the highest speeds most likely in coastal areas.

A number of flood alerts and warnings are in place with the Sands area at Appleby "of particular concern", police said.

'Damage and disruption'

Road and rail travel was also affected with people in the county urged not to travel unless necessary.

Cockermouth's Cocker Bridge was closed to vehicles and pedestrians from 18:00 GMT as a precaution.

Cumberland Council expects it to reopen by 07:00 GMT on Monday, weather permitting.

Restrictions on high-sided vehicles on the A66 between Scotch Corner and junction 40 of the M6 are in place until 03:00 GMT on Monday.

Avanti West Coast said it had been running reduced rail services on Sunday with its last trains of the day departing at 16:00 GMT.

Ch Supt Carl Patrick, of Cumbria Police, said there was "potential for some significant damage and disruption as this storm continues through the night and into tomorrow".

Engineers on standby

He advised people to keep up to date with the latest news and to make themselves aware of key contacts they might need.

Electricity North West said it had hundreds of engineers on standby to repair damage to power supplies.

However, it warned conditions could make it unsafe for lines teams to climb with the possibility power may be off until conditions ease.

Customer director Steph Trubshaw said: "Where we can, we will restore properties remotely utilising the technology we have on our network, but for faults that need a permanent repair power may be off overnight and into Monday if conditions are too dangerous.

"Should that be the case, we'll ensure regular updates are provided to those customers that are impacted and from tomorrow morning, we'll have hundreds of staff responding to ensure supplies are restored."