SEVERE weather brought down trees and cut power to hundreds of homes in West Devon and East Cornwall last Friday, with emergency services rushed off their feet.

Police across Devon and Cornwall worked throughout the night dealing with a large number of calls and incidents relating to the storms, including four fallen trees causing damage and road closures in Tavistock, and two road traffic incidents on the A30 near Okehampton.

A 25ft tree had to be felled on the corner of Abbey Rise and Whitchurch Road in Tavistock, resulting in a road closure of 45 minutes just after 2pm on Friday, and at 4.45pm a 60ft conifer tree split and a large branch fell on three cars in the Social Services Car Park at Abbey Rise, severely damaging two of the vehicles.

A tree surgeon was called in to inspect all the trees in the vicinity and found another 60ft specimen which had to be removed for health and safety reasons, as its rootball was loose.

The road between Pixon Lane and Abbey Bridge roundabout was closed all night due to this incident.

A tree also came down in Launceston Road near Tavistock Hospital at 11pm, causing a major power cut and a tree also fell at Denham Bridge.

Tavistock PCSO Rob Walsh said the storms had kept the police busy over the last few weeks, but Friday's affected the town the worst: 'We felt the brunt of it here but we were lucky there was not any more serious damage,' he said.

'In Market Street a section of roof came off which was repaired by the fire service but it was not as bad as we initially thought.'

Homes in the College Avenue area of Tavistock had a power cut around 5.30pm and in Gunnislake there was a series of power cuts, the last of which was two hours and 39 minutes long and affected 805 homes in the Drakewalls area. This was due to trees bringing down power cables.

Strong winds of more than 80mph affected the area and Western Power Distribution had to reconnect 150,000 customers throughout its network.

There were two weather-related road traffic collisions on the A30 on Friday, one on the way to Merrymeet and the other towards Stowford.

The fire service also had to secure two roofs, one on a structure at Sourton Cross and the other on the BP garage at Whiddon Down.

The fire service carried out the work to ensure no debris from either building blew onto the dual carriageway.

Several people were assisted to safety after vehicles became stranded in flood water near Moretonhampstead just after 5pm.

Fire appliances from Moretonhampstead and Bovey Tracey were in attendance, this being just one of more than 200 calls of weather-related incidents across Devon and Somerset on Friday.

Last Wednesday a number of roads were also closed due to fallen trees including Castle Road in Okehampton and the road from Sandy Park Cross to Dogmarsh Bridge in Chagford.

Devon County Council's highways team were kept busy clearing debris and trees from roads and also scouted other major roads for further problems.

After the strong winds and showers, temperatures dropped in the evening and the council's gritters were treating the roads in the coldest parts of the county.

Cllr Stuart Hughes, Devon County Council cabinet member for highway management and flood prevention, said: 'The continuing heavy rain and strong winds are causing yet more disruption across the county and our highways teams are working flat out to keep roads clear and as safe as possible.'

A police spokesman said: 'The police experienced a very busy period during the latest storm and although there is considerable damage to individual properties, large scale flooding was avoided.

'The advice now is to be cautious if you have to go out and about. Roads remain dangerous due to surface water, fallen trees and heavy rain continues to fall in some areas.

'We would ask residents to check on the welfare of their neighbours and continue to monitor the weather forecast and flooding alerts via their local news stations, the Met Office and Environment Agency.'