South-west England and Cumbria bear the brunt of heavy rain and gales A road near Heathrow airport in Middlesex: 28 flood warnings were in force in the UK on Wednesday evening, most of them in the south-west and Wales. Heavy rain, gale-force winds and tidal surges led to flooding in England's south-west and on the Cumbrian coast as prevailing westerlies continued to sweep in remnants of hurricane weather from the other side of the Atlantic. Shops and a pub in Mevagissey in Cornwall were left several inches deep in water, and seafront businesses were also affected by minor flooding in Paignton and Bideford in Devon, and Weston-Super-Mare in Somerset where storm gates in a new £29m defence scheme were not closed in time. Strong winds driving some of the highest tides of the year were the problem in south-west England and along the coast of Wales, while in Cumbria the culprit was the familiar one of very heavy rain. Police warned drivers to avoid the centre of Whitehaven, the finest example of a Georgian layout of any town in the UK including Bath, because of standing water in the streets. A score of fishermen were stranded at Sandside in Cumbria where cars filled with water when tidal surges broke over their door sills. Robert Mallinson, 53, an agricultural engineer from the nearby village of Witherslack, was marooned for several hours on a temporary island with his son Dan, who is 28. They consoled themselves by catching "a couple of fat fish." Lyn Million, landlady of the Ship Inn in Sandside commiserated with the flooded Ship Inn at Mevagissey and said: "It's rained continuously for days. The tide came right up and over the road. It's quite deep, people can't drive through it, they're having to turn back and go another way. Flooding stopped train services between Liskeard and Looe in Cornwall, and the sea was too rough for the Scillonian ferry between Penzance and the Isles of Scilly to make the usual morning crossing. By Wednesday evening, 28 flood warnings were in force, 14 in the south-west, 12 in Wales, one on the Cumbrian coast and another at Bosham and Itchenor in West Sussex. There were 72 flood alerts, the next level down from warnings, mostly in the south-west and Wales. The Meteorological Office issued a forecast of continuing rain in the north-west for much of Thursday, but high winds easing and calmer weather moving in. The prospect for the weekend and next week is 'unsettled', the frontrunner for most-used word in 2012 to describe the weather.