by Hurricane Gert yesterday relived her family's night of terror.

But Sally Ellison said: "Everybody is all right -- and that's the main thing.

It could have been a lot worse.'' "It was a noisy night,'' she recalled. "We kept hearing things and getting up. We heard a loud noise, opened the bedroom door and we could look right out into the ocean.'' Mrs. Ellison and 11 family members and friends, including four small children were in "Rock Merrell'', on South Road, Hamilton Parish, when the garden slipped into Sam Hall's Bay.

Heavy waves ripped away walls, exposing a bedroom and a laundry room in the early hours of the morning.

But Mrs. Ellison, from San Francisco, California, had already moved her family out of the bedroom and shifted furniture after they noticed a crack in the wall.

Hurricane Gert gives family a night of terror She said: "Essentially, the whole back wall came out -- the washing machine and the dryer are down on the rocks. It was very strange, because in the bedroom all there is left is one yellow, red and blue curtain flying in the breeze.'' Mrs. Ellison added that she was not aware if the house had been visited by Police as part of an early-warning programme for evacuating danger areas. She said: "We were gone for part of the day on Monday.'' And she admitted: "We really didn't realise the seriousness of it -- although there wasn't a lot we could have done, anyway.'' Mrs. Ellison, 62, said the house had been bought by her father in the 1960s and she intended to rebuild -- depending on if it suffered much more damage in hurricane-boosted high tides last night.

She added: "There are a lot of memories here -- but we're just waiting to see what happens. We're hoping nothing else happens.

"It can be fixed -- as long as not a whole lot else goes.'' Mrs. Ellison said, however, she was taking the damage on the chin and added it was just the luck of the draw that her home was hardest hit.

She added: "Sometimes, these things just happen -- it's a freak thing and one place gets it.

"In southern California, we get big fires and one house burns down and another one doesn't.

"It certainly teaches respect for Mother Nature.'' And she said that she would not be put off from further visits to the Island.

Mrs. Ellison said: "We were looking forward to a good holiday and we have a very nice time -- until that happened.

"We love it here and this won't keep us from coming back again.'' Los Angeles resident Mike Muir, who travelled to Bermuda to vacation with Mrs.

Ellison and her husband, said he did not even hear the crash as the wall collapsed into the sea.

He said: "There weren't any other houses damaged as badly as the one we were in.'' And he echoed Mrs. Ellison's philosophical views on the hurricane-wrought damage.

Mr. Muir said: "They have weather in Bermuda and they have weather in California -- Bermuda is a nice place to come, despite what happened.''