Storm Damage Mounts Across Midwest, South : Weather: Five deaths, dozens of injuries blamed on torrent of floods, lightning and tornadoes. Tennessee is latest hit.

Tornadoes and flooding struck Tennessee on Friday, and thousands of people remained without electricity after a barrage of storms in the Midwest and South caused five deaths and dozens of injuries. A small Wisconsin dam threatened to burst.

One of the dead was a Georgia woman killed in her bathroom by lightning. Lightning on Thursday also sparked fires, including one in a chemical warehouse near Chicago that sent 85 people to hospitals. At least 50 remained hospitalized Friday.

Two pre-dawn tornadoes destroyed the top floor of an unoccupied office building in Fairview, Tenn., south of Nashville, Friday and downed trees and power lines across the central part of the state, said Tom Cloud of the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. No injuries were reported.

Heavy rain caused flooding that forced a brief evacuation of 30 homes in Nashville.

Patrick and Phyllis McGee of Nashville had planned to leave on vacation Friday but found their cars and part of their house under water.

“We’re not in a good mood,” Mrs. McGee said.

Nearly four days of rain had fallen on northwestern Wisconsin and more was expected, and a dam forming two-acre Michelle Lake in Hurley was “expected to bust anytime,” said Iron County sheriff’s Deputy Joe Robinson.

“I hate to even think about it. We will lose roads, and there are condominiums down there.” Robinson added that two bridges on the Montreal River had been washed out.

About 20 people had to leave their homes Friday in the Old Odanah community near Ashland in northwestern Wisconsin when the Bad River rose out of its banks, officials said. The area had received over seven inches of rain since Tuesday.

“We’re just on overload,” Jan Victorson, an emergency official in nearby Bayfield County, said Thursday. “Our highway commissioner used up the supply of signs and flags to warn people of road washouts.”

Storms on Thursday cut electricity to tens of thousands in Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and Georgia.

About 100,000 Commonwealth Edison customers in the Chicago area remained without power Friday, down from 200,000, said spokesman Jeff Ruffing. He said Edison had to give up hopes of getting all power restored by Friday evening as crews worked nonstop to make repairs.

Thursday’s storms also disrupted airline flights on the eve of the holiday weekend. Flights were delayed at Hartsfield-Atlanta Airport and at Chicago’s O’Hare International.

Lightning in the south Chicago suburb of Chicago Heights apparently started a chemical warehouse fire that sent 50 people to hospitals, police said. More than 300 people were evacuated, but they were allowed to return home Friday.

Lightning also was the suspected cause of a fire on the roof of the U.S. Postal Service hub under construction at Indianapolis International Airport. The fire was contained within an hour.

Extra police patrolled parts of Collinsville, Okla., on Friday to prevent looting after a tornado reduced at least six houses and mobile homes to rubble.

“We could hear the debris flying all around us, wood falling, doors going down,” said Ruth Ann Carmichael, whose house was destroyed.

Softball-size hail damaged crops and smashed windows in Nebraska.

Heavy rain and high wind stranded motorists in Ottumwa, Iowa, where more than two inches of rain fell in an hour.

In central Iowa, some crops were damaged by hail. Steve Noble said hail destroyed about 200 acres of corn on his family’s farm northwest of Grimes.

“It just stripped it down,” Noble said.

Thursday’s storms also were blamed for three deaths in Indiana and one in Illinois.