The situation was so serious an RAF helicopter was called in to help pluck several stranded residents to safety.

But Northumberland county councillor Andrew Tebbutt said the situation had "eased considerably" overnight.

At the height of the floods, Morpeth High Street was under 2ft of water.

Residents spent the night at two rescue centres in the north and the south of the town.

Coun Tebbutt, in joint charge of emergency planning, said yesterday: "The situation has eased overnight considerably. Fortunately it is not raining at the moment.

"If we get torrential rain again like we did yesterday then it will reflood very quickly, the ground is saturated."

He said about 1,000 homes were affected by the flooding and around 400 people were evacuated.

"There were a considerable number of people who self-evacuated so the number will be higher," he added.

Floods Recovery Minister John Healey will visit Morpeth today .

He will meet personnel from the emergency services and other officials involved in the rescue effort and clean-up .

While in Northumberland, he will announce that the Government will operate the Bellwin scheme, which provides emergency financial assistance to local authorities to meet costs of an emergency or disaster.

The Minister will also meet local residents whose homes and businesses have been devastated and will report back to the Prime Minister.

The British Red Cross said many of the people evacuated from their homes were elderly and were "traumatised" by the experience.

Judy Evans, operations director for the North East and Cumbria, said the organisation was asked to help the emergency services, who had been unable to cope with the number of calls.

She said the Red Cross sent three ambulances to the town.

"They were unable to cope with the volume of calls so we were able to give them some assistance," she said.

She said the organisation had initially been asked to help with the evacuation of elderly residents in the centre of Morpeth.

"The flood waters rose so quickly that we were not able to help... because we couldn't get the vehicles in," she said.

"We were then asked to help with the set up of an evacuation centre. It is very difficult when your house is being flooded and you are quite elderly so people needed help re-adjusting to that situation."

Ms Evans said that while there were no serious casualties overnight, three people were airlifted to hospital because ambulances could not get to them.