By Chris Hardy and Gordon Berry

A ST CYRUS mother and daughter are recovering from a lucky escape after a bolt of lightning hit the road yards from where they were driving on Thursday night.

Lynsey Cargill, of Lauriston, had been out with her three-year-old daughter Eilidh and her friend, eight-year-old Miruna Berechet, on a visit to the nature reserve at the foot of the St Cyrus cliffs.

“We could see the storm coming in and we had just got back to the car when there was a huge roll of thunder,” recalled Mrs Cargill.

“We were coming out of the car park when lightning forked across the road.”

It was the most spectacular in the series of flashes during the storm and was witnessed several miles south in Montrose.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Mrs Cargill (29).

“You could smell the burning. It was like newly laid tar with steam rising off it. If I had been 30 seconds later it might not have been very nice.

“There was another woman driving along the road at the time and the lightning struck in front of her.

“There were bits of road the size of cricket balls about 200 yards away. It was amazing and pretty scary. I have never seen anything like it in my life.”

A two-foot wide, one-foot deep trench had been gouged from the road, making it impassable.

Aberdeenshire Council repaired the damage yesterday.

The MET office said it was unusual for lightning bolts to hit the ground close to people and in populated areas.

Elsewhere in Angus, the Montrose area was recovering yesterday from the thunderstorm that hung over it for much of Thursday night.

It was the most persistent witnessed in the area for many years and while most people and places recovered quickly, for others it took longer.

A six-inch deep slick of mud had to be cleared from around a Montrose garage before it could begin work yesterday morning.

Overnight, thunderstorms swept tons of mud off a nearby field at the foot of Rossie Braes, swamping the drainage system.

The torrent rushed past a roundabout and spilled into the Bridge End Garage forecourt.

Proprietor David Fairweather was alerted around 9.30 on Thursday night and tried to protect his workshop.

“It was too late,” he said.

“It all happened within the space of seven minutes.”

Angus Council put up flood warning signs and yesterday morning the clear-up began around the garage and neighbouring properties using pumps and water hoses.

Montrose Port Authority and Angus Council joined forces to help Mr Fairweather and his employees mop up before he could open for business.

“It was a real mess,” said Councillor Mark Salmond.

“But there has been a fantastic turnout with Tayside Contracts supported by Montrose Port Authority who were very neighbourly and offered men and equipment.

“It might have been a lot worse if I had not asked for the ditches on Rossie Braes to be cleaned out a few months ago.

“The weather was exceptional and there was a lot of mud coming off the fields, but we need to find a long term solution to the flooding problem in this area. I believe this happened a number of years ago and we need to ensure it does not happen again.”

He added, “As a council we have responded quickly to this emergency but we need to look for a permanent solution.”

In north-east Fife, there were reports of flash flooding.

Units of Fife Fire and Rescue Service from St Andrews, Cupar, Tayport, St Monans and Anstruther were all alerted at various times between the storm beginning around 1.30am and up to 5am.

Roads and some properties were affected as the storm passed over, and in Crail the roof of a house was damaged by a lightning strike.

In St Andrews there were calls from commercial properties in the town centre, and from residents whose homes were threatened.

There were also reports of problems on roads between Strathkinness and St Andrews, and between Kemback and Strathkinness, both of which were closed for a time, and the primary school at Dunino was closed because of power problems.

A Fife Council spokesperson said many of the problems had been caused by the torrential rain washing material from fields and council staff had been out all day helping to clear up.

In Dundee, the flash flooding caused problems to power supplies while emergency generators kicked in at Ninewells Hospital.

The overnight thunderstorms knocked out cash machines and phone lines across the city.

As the power went down Ninewells Hospital’s own back-up supplies kept vital life support systems running until the main power supply was restored.

“The lightning spike caused problems to the power supply and switches dropped out but our generators came on immediately,” said NHS Tayside’s head of estates Ed McIntosh.

“The main power wasn’t off for long.

Minor mayhem was caused when people turning up for work in restricted areas of the hospital could not pass through the security doors that use swipe card systems to control entry. The systems went haywire when the power went down.

Mr McIntosh said ways to override the systems were used until they were restored.

Several ATMs belonging to Lloyds TSB in Dundee were put out of commission for a spell by the storms.

A spokesman for the Met Office said the thunderstorm was nothing out of the ordinary, although he admitted it had moved slowly.

“We tend to see thunderstorms here during the spring, summer and autumn.

“The thunderstorm moved in from the North Sea and was slow moving across Dundee, Angus and Fife through the evening and overnight.”

It then moved up to the central Highlands and continued to move west.