Strong thunderstorms passed through Liberty County Monday morning leaving a path of debris and destruction from Riceboro east to Sunbury.

Monday afternoon Liberty County Administrator Joey Brown issued a statement saying the line of thunderstorms blew through around 7 a.m.

Tuesday, the folks at the Liberty County Office of Emergency Management reported that at least eight homes were damaged in the Sunbury and Riceboro areas. 

“It is not known at this time whether or not the storms were caused by a small tornado or strong straight-line winds,” Brown reported Monday. He added that no casualties or injuries have been reported.

LEMA stated that damage assessment teams did an initial windshield assessment on Monday. They are asking residents to call in any damages that couldn’t be seen from the road. Residents needing to report damage should call the County’s Tax Assessor’s Office (912)876-3568.

Approximately 1,711 homes in Liberty were without power by noon Monday, LEMA reported. 

As of noon Tuesday, Georgia Power had restored power to Liberty County homes and were working on outages in Shellman’s Bluff in McIntosh County, Odum in Wayne County and Glennville in Tattnall County. 

Coastal electric Cooperative was working on restoring the last 18 homes with power outages per their interactive outage map at noon Tuesday

On Monday Brown said most of the roadways in the area are passable but asked motorists to not travel to those affected areas unless it was absolutely necessary, “As there is still a good bit of loose debris in lanes of travel,” he warned.

LEMA reported that many residents have started taking debris to convenience centers. Convenience Centers on the East End of the County have extended their hours until dark. Private contractors/tree companies are not permitted to dump at those sites.

“Those persons utilizing contractors should have them dispose of material at their normal approved disposal site,” Brown said Monday. “No contractors will be permitted at convenience center locations.”