A sales manager had a shock awakening when lightning blasted through the roof of her home and zapped the carpet inches from her bed.

Shocked Claire Grove, 32, was alerted to the freak strike by gurgling from her radiators. The water inside boiled in seconds from the intense heat.

She pulled up the smouldering rug to discover the electrical bolt had scorched her floorboards and burst a gas pipe.

Her ground-floor flat in Westbourne Villas, Hove, was one of several hit by the spectacular summer storms which rocked Sussex early yesterday morning.

Lightning lit up the dawn sky as vertical and horizontal streaks flashed across the horizon.

It blitzed the county in two waves at 3.30am and 6.30am, accompanied by booming thunder and heavy bursts of rain.

The bolt which struck Claire's roof at 7am, ripped through three floors, blasting floorboards just 3ft from her head.

She said: "The thunder woke me up and I couldn't go back to sleep. I heard the radiators gurgling and could hear creaking, as though someone was in the flat.

"I got up to have a look and saw smouldering around the carpet, and could smell smoke. I thought it was just singed.

"I got a screwdriver and pulled the carpet up. I was amazed. The floorboards had been burnt away and a gas pipe had burst."

Claire turned off the gas and electricity and dialled 999 before leaving the flat with her cat, Bella.

She said: "I'm almost never in the flat on Sunday morning and there was no one in the two flats upstairs either.

"If I hadn't been here, the whole three floors would have gone up in flames."

Leading firefighter Roger Lovewell, of Hove station, said: "She was very lucky. The fire could have smouldered away and burnt the whole block."

Yesterday's storm was the first rain for 14 days in Sussex in what could become one of the driest Junes on record.

Both East and West Sussex fire brigades were inundated with calls as fire alarms were activated. The storm also activated car alarms and knocked out hundreds of phones.

In Chichester, a thunderbolt blasted through a detached house setting fire to the roof and forcing a family of four, including two teenage girls, to flee.

The Chambers family were woken by a loud bang.

They stumbled around in their detached house in Worcester Road to find a smell of smoke and the property was in total darkness as the electrics had blown.

The lightning blew a hole in a downstairs radiator, spraying water across the lounge.

Then two girls returning from a night out knocked on the door to tell the family their roof was on fire.

Natalie, 15, and her sister Joanne, 13, grabbed their two budgies and dog, Winston, and fled the property.

Ten firefighters from Chichester and Bognor tackled the blaze in the roof and managed to save the property.

The lightning went through a corner of the bedroom where Natalie was sleeping.

Her father Clifford said: "The fire services were quickly on the scene and did a superb job. There is water damage and we have ceilings down. We are are going to need a new roof after this."