The charity’s Flood Rescue Team has been operating mainly in the Kendal area, while crew members from Workington RNLI lifeboat station have helped people in Cockermouth.
At 7.45 am today (Sunday 6 December), the RNLI volunteers were tasked with other emergency services to go to Carlisle, where water levels are expected to peak just after 9am.
Matt Crofts, RNLI Lifesaving Delivery Manager, said the conditions were dreadful overnight.
He said: ‘As well as the heavy rain, the wind has made conditions difficult and some areas have been almost impossible to reach, even for our specialist flood team.
"The main flood response efforts are now turning to Carlisle, where the water levels are still rising and people who have been trapped in their homes since yesterday will need to be taken to safety.’
One of the team’s most difficult tasks was the rescue of six people and their two dogs from a remote bungalow in the Levens area. The people – including a pregnant woman and two children – had been stranded for 12 hours and were using flash lights to signal for help.
The flood water surrounding the property was fast flowing and this, combined with the unpredictable terrain, meant it was too dangerous to use a boat to rescue them.
A local farmer volunteered to use his tractor to ferry five members of the RNLI Flood Rescue Team to the bungalow with a rescue sled. The occupants were evacuated two at a time and then transferred to a local pub to warm up.
Volunteers from Workington RNLI lifeboat station have been using their inshore lifeboat in Cockermouth to help evacuate people, several of them in need of medical assistance.
The RNLI Flood Rescue Team consists mainly of volunteers from lifeboat stations around the coast who are specially-trained in flood and swift water rescue techniques.
Some of the team members currently helping in Cumbria also took part in the 2009 flood rescue operation in Cockermouth.