THE CHAIRMAN of Branscombe Parish Council aided his wife as she was called out in the early hours of this morning after severe storms affected power supplies. John Bass and his wife were called by an alarm company at around 1.30am after the power at Sidmo

THE CHAIRMAN of Branscombe Parish Council aided his wife as she was called out in the early hours of this morning after severe storms affected power supplies.

John Bass and his wife were called by an alarm company at around 1.30am after the power at Sidmouth College went out setting the alarm off.

Mr Bass said: "We had a very busy night. My wife was called at around 1.30am after the college alarm had been triggered.

"I went with her as it was so late at night and because of the storm."

Mr and Mrs Bass had to wait several hours for an engineer to come out as he was travelling from Ottery St Mary, which was severely flooded.

He added: "We only got back home at 5am so we were both very tired."

Mr Bass also witnessed some of the flooding around the Otterton area.

He said: "I was working high up on scaffolding at Colaton Raleigh and there was a lot of water around Otterton.

"It looked more like a lake than anything else.

"I saw the police helicopter flying around looking for people in need of help and there were a lot of members of the emergency services around.