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Saturday, October 31, 2026Oct 31

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Storms pass through region, but Riverbend expected to go on as planned

Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter / 
Volunteer Kila Hudson makes her way into the festival site for the seventh night of Riverbend at Ross's Landing on Thursday, June 15, in Chattanooga, Tenn. Morris Day and The Time with Cameo headlined the evening.
Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter / Volunteer Kila Hudson makes her way into the festival site for the seventh night of Riverbend at Ross's Landing on Thursday, June 15, in Chattanooga, Tenn. Morris Day and The Time with Cameo headlined the evening. Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter / Volunteer Kila Hudson makes her way into the festival site for the seventh night of Riverbend at Ross's Landing on Thursday, June 15, in Chattanooga, Tenn. Morris Day and The Time with Cameo headlined the evening.

Storms rolling through the area have caused some damage in Marion and Hamilton counties today, but the Riverbend Festival likely won’t be cancelled.

Linda Billingslea with Friends of the Festival, a nonprofit that helps organize Riverbend Festival, said she isn’t expecting the festival to be cancelled unless there is thunder or lightning. If that happened, she said, the festival would resume once the thunder and lightning passed.

In Marion County, several wrecks were reported on Interstate 24 westbound between the 152-155 mile marker due to the severe storms, said a spokesperson from Marion County dispatch.

John Pless, public relations coordinator for the Electric Power Board, said there were “a few hundred customers affected by storms.” But, he said, the Smart Grid – EPB’s self-repairing system that reroutes power around problem areas to cut down on outages – was automatically restoring power to many customers, so the numbers were fluctuating greatly.