Linda Davis let her groceries drop beside the piles of sandbags protecting her house in Pontypridd from the once-again surging waters of the River Taff. The 73-year-old was utterly exhausted on Saturdayafter spending all night watching the mud-brown river rise higher and higher as heavy rain swept in with Storm Jorge. “It is frightening,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “I’m just so tired.”

Davis’s house, along with many of her neighbours’ properties, was inundated with a metre of filthy floodwater two weeks ago in the aftermath of Storm Dennis. Since then, she and her husband, Howard, 76, have had no fridge to keep their food fresh and no hot water.

“It’s been horrendous and it could have easily come in again last night,” she said. “It didn’t, thank God – but there is more rain coming. We won’t be able to relax for a long time.”

As the Met Office declared last month to be the wettest February on record, police in flood-hit south Wales declared a temporary “critical incident”. Meanwhile, emergency services, councils and other bodies worked to protect property, infrastructure and residents. Many towns and villages were braced for further flooding as water ran off already saturated hills and fields along the western half of Britain. Hundreds of homes have been flooded.

The Environment Agency in England and its counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had put in place 106 flood warnings by last night, stretching from north to south and east to west, and a further 239 flood alerts.

In Pontypridd, the community had only just started to recover from the last flood. In the Trallwn community centre higher up the valley, volunteers were distributing donated cleaning products, toiletries, food and clothes to families devastated by the floods. Groups of young people in yellow vests dashed out to clean up flood-damaged properties and clear abandoned furniture and kitchens from front gardens.

A local Plaid Cymru councillor, Heledd Fychan, who represents one of the worst-affected town-centre wards, said the Red Cross was on standby on Saturday night in case remaining residents such as Linda and Howard Davis had to be evacuated into the centre. “There was huge anxiety last night,” she said, as volunteers helped residents find buckets and bottles of bleach to disinfect their homes. “Many of the flood defences are broken – the walls have come down. It could happen again.”

People have been bringing around food parcels and giving away sofas, fridge freezers and TVs. This town is the best thing Florence Heritage, Pontypridd resident

Fychan said it was a poor community, with many of the 680 affected families lacking insurance to cover the cost of replacing wrecked belongings. “People are being costed out of insurance. It is so astronomical. It is between £70 and £100 a month for home insurance.”

Florence Heritage, 28, and Cosmo Valseca, 48, have no insurance. They live in a rented house close to the river and are staying put for now. “We stayed here last night. I’m pregnant and I’ve got a four-year-old,” said Heritage. “I was in a massive panic. The whole town was in a massive panic. We were literally a foot away from the river bursting its banks again.”

They were also flooded two weeks ago and have only just managed to clean up. They lost almost all their furniture and their oven is broken but, so far, they have received only £500 from Rhondda Cynon Taf council. “I’ve been scrubbing on my hands and knees to get it looking like this, and I’m 10 weeks pregnant. It would break my back to have to do it again,” she said.

She was full of praise for Pontypridd. “People have been bringing around food parcels and giving away sofas, fridge freezers and TVs. This town is the best thing.”

But she was most concerned that the bill now facing the council would lead to further cuts to local services: “They are begging Westminster for money but we have got Boris Johnson, so that won’t happen.”

In the town centre, the Clwb Y Bont bar and venue, which is owned by a cooperative, was flooded again on Friday night. Geraint Day, 48, the chair of the cooperative, which exists to promote the Welsh language and culture, said it was sad to see the place in such a state. “It is an integral part of the community,” he said. “We need to raise £30,000 to £40,000 before we can reopen.”

The Met Office said the UK had an average rainfall of 202.1mm last month, beating the February 1990 figure of 193.4mm.