Several lines of heavy thunderstorms ripped through East Ridge late Sunday night and early Monday morning downing trees and power lines and damaging homes, officials said.

Unconfirmed reports from local meteorologists said that a tornado touched down in Camp Jordan Park before moving on to East Brainerd where the storm destroyed businesses and some homes.

Fire Chief Mike Williams posted information this morning at 2:30 saying that no injuries were reported during the storm.

His post follows: The City of East Ridge has widespread storm damage. We have multiple trees across roadways, trees in houses,power lines down, flash flooding and power outages. Please use extreme caution and watch for downed power lines. We have many departments from all areas of the city clearing roadways and doing damage assessments. If you have trees or power lines down please call 911 to report it. We are unclear if this is from straight line winds or a tornado touchdown. No injuries have been reported.

Chief Williams updated his post at 4:20 a.m.: All East Ridge Firefighters have been called in to assist with answering calls, and storm assessment. We have send a crew to Chattanooga and a swift water crew to Soddy Daisy, where four people were rescued. Our crews are now assisting other city service departments with clearing roads to gain access to neighborhoods. We have answered over 60 calls within the first hour. Please continue to keep our crews in your thoughts and prayers as they work through the night.

Many homes in East Ridge remain without power. According to the EPB, the storms that ripped through the area caused “catastrophic damage” to portions of the system. As many as 43,000 customers continue to experience loss of power as of late Monday afternoon.

At about 8:15 p.m. on Monday evening, an exhausted Chief Williams was inspecting a blown transformer not far from his home on Newport Drive at a residence where a tree had fallen destroying a car. He said his own home was without power.

EPB officials said that there are now about 115 crews with about 380 people working to restore power for people in the Chattanooga area.

The Hamilton County Department of Health said when power is out for a prolonged time, people should take steps to make sure that refrigerated food is safe to consume.

The health department said, foods requiring refrigeration should always be kept at or below 40˚F, or frozen at 0˚F or below. During a power outage, the temperature in a refrigerator will keep food cold for about four hours if the door is not opened. A full freezer will keep food frozen approximately 48 hours (half full freezer only 24 hours) if the door is not opened.

Once power is restored you will need to determine the safety of your food. The following general guidelines should be followed after a power outage:

• Using an appliance thermometer is the best way to find out how cold the food has been kept. Check the temperature when the power comes back on. If the freezer thermometer reads 40°F or below, the food is safe and may be refrozen.
• If a thermometer has not been kept in the freezer, check each package of food to determine its safety. You can’t rely on appearance or odor. If the food still contains ice crystals or is 40 °F or below, it is safe to refreeze or cook.
• Refrigerated food should be safe as long as the power was out for no more than 4 hours and the refrigerator door was kept shut. Discard any perishable food (such as meat, poultry, fish, eggs or leftovers) that has been above 40°F for two hours or more.

East Ridge News Online will update this story when more information is available.