Thousands of pounds worth of trade was lost when heavy rain flooded out a major supermarket.

Water poured through the roof of the Tesco supermarket at the Holmbush Centre in Upper Shoreham Road, Shoreham, at 8.30am on Wednesday following a torrential rainstorm.

The store, usually open around the clock, was forced to close for two hours as the leak shorted out the electrical supply to freezers and chilled food storage areas.

Crowds of people were turned away and surrounding shops including Marks & Spencer, Homebase and McDonald's were inundated with extra customers.

Shoreham firefighter Andy Gilbert said: "The water got into a 15 volt electrical supply causing some arcing, with sparks arcing through the air, which can be extremely dangerous.

"The flood was caused by the unusual amount of rain that fell on Wednesday morning, which got past their drainage system."

When the store reopened at 11am, it was unable to stock chilled or frozen foods. A Tesco spokeswoman warned it may not be able to do so until tomorrow.

She said: "We have already got contractors working to try to get the electricity back to normal and the fridges and freezers will be up and running."

There were also small floods in the grounds of the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, with water collecting outside the hospital buildings, and at The Argus' building in Hollingbury, Brighton, water turned service roads into small rivers.

Battering winds and driving rain are expected to cause more problems over the next few days.

On Monday the Environment Agency issued a Floodwatch warning for vulnerable Selsey Bill and another was issued for the same area on Wednesday.

A spokeswoman from the agency warned more Floodwatch warnings would be issued for other parts of the coast over the next few days.

Thursday November 3 2005