Emergency services were inundated with calls last night as violent storms hit Sussex.

Lightning strikes sparked blazes in multiple locations and torrential rain caused flash floods and dangerous roads across the county.

In Worthing, a teenager was left shaking with fear as he witnessed a giant ball of lightning strike a house during a violent thunder storm.

Durrington High School pupil Kane Bone, 13, of New Road, West Durrington, Worthing, said: "I was looking out of the window and saw this massive ball of purple light hit a 50 foot high lamp post then shoot across and hit the house opposite.

"It scared the hell out of me."

His mother Fran Bone said: "He just went as white as a sheet and was shaking."

The thunder bolt hit a semi-detached house in New Road, damaging about 30 roof tiles and scorching the plastic double-glazing window frame.

The elderly woman inside was left shaken but unhurt.

She declined to comment as relatives comforted her in her living room.

Sub-officer Darren Wickings of Worthing Fire Station said: "The lightning hit the roof and zigzagged to the ground, burning out all the wires in the house.

"The elderly lady inside was very, very shaken.

"The television and wiring was very badly damaged."

Scores of people stood on the seafront during the height of the storm watching multiple lightning strikes, many out to sea, but they ran for cover during a torrential cloud burst.

Mrs Bone's former house in Cotswold Road, Worthing, was also hit by lightning 20 years ago, putting paid to the proverb that lightning never strikes twice.

Across the other side of the county in Uckfield, David Chapman looked out of his office window to see black lumps falling out of the sky.

Mr Chapman, who works at Arla Food in Sheffield Park, Uckfield, was witnessing the debris following a lightning strike at the timber yard next to Bluebell Railway, opposite his office.

Mr Chapman, 42, said last night: "I ran out and around the side of the building and saw the yard burning.

"There were six fire engines and it is still burning now."

Nearby, Aberdale Road and High Street in Polegate were flooded.

Downpours also cut short the first day of the Goodwood Festival of Speed, with motor enthusiasts forced to abandon racing and take cover from the sheets of rain.