Flood heroes have received praise from police chiefs after battling "beyond the call of duty" to minimise damage.

David Kenworthy, Chief Constable of North Yorkshire, picked out individuals for particular commendation.

Among them was Sergeant Glen Jackson, of Malton police.

"His house was flooded in Norton last year, and he was flooded again this year, and yet he was still doing 12 hours of duty in Selby," said Mr Kenworthy, speaking at yesterday's meeting of the North Yorkshire Police Authority.

Support services faced up to 17,000 calls a day from across North Yorkshire at the height of the crisis, compared to two to three thousand on average.

"Everybody dealt with these floods extraordinarily well," said Mr Kenworthy.

"Officers worked really very long days, up to 18 hours in some circumstances. That is beyond the call of duty."

He said overtime costs ran to £28,000 a day, with the crisis lasting ten days.

Authority members also discussed spending a £1 million windfall of Government cash earmarked for rural policing.

They agreed £400,000 should be spent on the force's vehicle fleet, £100,000 for specialist support such as surveillance equipment and £130,000 for each of the county's three policing areas. A further £2 million will be available next year, but Mr Kenworthy said he was not intending to use the money to employ extra officers because he did not know if it would be continued in future years.

* North Yorkshire police are to get £3m for a new radio system to tackle communication blackspots in the county. The force will receive £2.1m to introduce the Airwave network and just over £1m to run it in 2001/02.