The emergency services have been praised for their response to the flooding in Laxey.

Police, fire and ambulance crews were joined by civil defence volunteers to pump water from flooded houses as well as check on and if necessary evacuate residents.

Their work, which included many hours in the pouring rain, has drawn praise from residents and politicians.

Minorca Hill resident Colin Samuel, who was lucky with only ’leaves and muck’ to pick up after a few inches of water got into his garage, said the coastguard had been checking on vulnerable residents from early on.

Mr Samuel said: ’Social services couldn’t get onto my neighbour so they rang the coastguard who came to check on him and he was OK.

’They’ve been checking everybody.’

A resident of the village who didn’t wish to be named told the Manx Independent that the police and fire crews had ’made sure everyone was OK’ and ’worked extremely hard in difficult circumstances which none of them coming to work today could have been expecting’.

Chief Constable Gary Roberts tweeted to praise all the emergency services. He said: ’Some fabulous work done today by lots of people. Here’s an unseen example: detectives putting their uniforms on to go out and help.

’Thank you to them, their colleagues and our partner agencies. We all feel so sorry for those people whose homes have been ruined.’

Chief fire officer Kevin Groom added: ’To my firefighters, the other emergency services, all government partners, agencies and the local community that responded to and assisted in many ways at the major incident today at Laxey - a’truly magnificent response from all involved.’