Pembrokeshire County Council staff and contractors who worked tirelessly to keep County residents safe over a stormy weekend have been thanked for their efforts.

Storms Eunice and Franklin caused widespread disruption across Pembrokeshire with fallen trees, blocked roads, damage to buildings and power outages.

Council staff and contractors worked from the early hours of Friday morning until late on Sunday evening - in some awful conditions - responding to some of the more than 1,200 calls received across the weekend.

Crews were then back out on Monday morning.

County Council Leader Cllr David Simpson and Chief Executive Will Bramble paid tribute to the efforts of everyone involved.

They said: “We would like to say a big thank you to all Pembrokeshire County Council staff, contractors and our partner agencies for going above and beyond throughout what was an extremely busy weekend.

“The teams out on the ground deserve special mention for the incredible shift they all put in, in the face of some extremely inhospitable conditions.

“They were ably supported by our colleagues taking the calls in our contact centre, the team in our Incident Management Centre and all departments across the Council co-ordinating their individual responses.

“We would also like to thank the public for the kind words received about the efforts of Council staff and contractors throughout the weekend. These messages have been collected and will be shared with the teams.”

The Council’s Contact Centre opened at 7 am on Friday to be ready for what was expected to be the worst storm in many years.

On Friday, the Contact Centre received more than 1,000 calls relating to Storm Eunice including 272 incidents on the County’s highways.

A further 68 emergency calls were received on Saturday morning, with the majority relating to housing repairs and highways.

Between Friday and Sunday night there were 218 building maintenance emergency requests and more than a dozen requests for dangerous structures to be assessed.

The Council kept residents up to date via social media, with 108 posts on Storm Eunice, plus 16 in-depth situation reports across the weekend.

More than 1,500 messages about the storms were received with people informing the Council of incidents near them.

Throughout the weekend the Cleddau Bridge was closed to high sided vehicles for more than 36 hours in total and was closed to all vehicles for five hours on Friday.

On Monday afternoon crews continued to deal with trees blocking highways and rights of way.

Members of the public are asked for their patience as teams work through the remaining calls and issues.