ENVIRONMENT Agency bosses were left red faced last night after their much vaunted flood information website crashed - because it was flooded with calls.

Thousands of worried people wanting vital weather information ahead of predicted storms last night were left staring at a blank screen.

New Internet maps, showing streets which potentially lie on flood plains, were launched by the agency yesterday.

But those who clicked on-line found it almost impossible to access the charts, as people clamoured to find out more about their area.

Agency chiefs revealed that more than 100,000 people tried to log-on to the site in ten hours. At peak times, 40 people a second were connecting to try and check on their streets.

The problems have been made more acute by Met Office warnings which revealed the North was in for another weekend of heavy wind and rain.

Up to three inches of rain and gusts of more than 80mph are expected to batter the region.

The Environment Agency has issued flood watches on rivers across the region.

A spokesperson for the agency said: "The problem with the website has been that we have just received too many hits.

"It has become a victim of its own success. Those 100,000 hits represent a month's worth of normal traffic.

"We had budgeted to need extra capacity, but the site has proved so popular it has just overwhelmed it.

"We were expecting a big response, but we didn't expect it to be so big.

"As for the present weather situation, we are carefully monitoring the situation and are informing people they should be prepared for the possibility of floods.

"At the moment we have not issued any severe flood warnings but we are concerned for the region's rivers."

www.environment-agency.gov.uk