their home during an early morning storm.

The bolt, during yesterday morning's gale-force thunderstorm, blew a hole in the wall of Larry Ebbin's Rocklands Estate home and destroyed a number of his and his wife's electrical items.

Mr. Ebbin recalled the harrowing incident which took place at about 8.30 a.m.

while he and his wife were putting away clothing she had just taken off the line outside.

"Lightning flashed and we heard thunder but it sounded like it was far away,'' he said. "My wife said `Better turn the lights off' but I didn't get a chance to.

"Lightning hit the outside of the house and then blew a hole in the wall. The lightning came inside and conducted through an adjustable lamp. It burnt that out completely.

"The lightning then blasted through the hallway and the dining room. It went about 30 feet.'' After the dust settled, Mr. Ebbin saw the lightning had blown the plaster off the Bermuda stone wall and he could see through the hole from the inside to the outside of his house.

The blast blew out the couple's television and fax machine and left them with just one working telephone.

Fortunately he and his wife were unscathed, said Mr. Ebbin, except for the ringing the sound of the blast left in his ears.

"It sounded like a bomb. It was deafening. I was standing in the hall and the blast echoed in my ears for the longest time.

"I am glad my wife was not hurt. She was closer to it than I was.'' A spokesman for the Bermuda Weather Service explained that three separate bands of stormy weather hit the Island through the night.

But he added that the worst of the weather was now over, with further threats of storms dying out by this morning.

"We had gusts of around 56 knots and a very intense low formed to the west of the Island,'' the spokesman said.

"That moved north northeast which put us in the strongest point of the storm.

"There is the possibility of more storms but they are only very slight.

"But if there is a storm, you don't have to unplug all your electrical goods but it is probably advisable to switch everything off. Apart from that it's just a case of sitting back and hoping that it doesn't hit.''