Flash Flood — Caddo, Louisiana

2023-06-03 · near Jewella, Caddo, Louisiana

Event narrative

Vehicular high water rescue near Devaughn Street and Rightway Avenue at the underpass along Hearne Avenue in Shreveport. One person was rescued, but a second person was trapped in the same vehicle and drowned.

Wider weather episode

Thunderstorms began to develop during the afternoon of June 3rd across parts of East and Northeast Texas, extending eastward into portions of Northwest Louisiana. Strong daytime heating and dew points in the middle 60s to lower 70s allowed for modest air mass destabilization, with as much as 1500-2000 J/kg of instability from East Texas into much of neighboring Northwest Louisiana. Deep layer flow was weak, resulting in slow moving storms and very little shear in the background environment. Given this regime, storms generally posed a brief severe risk and remained very pulse in nature, with an increasing threat of flash flooding throughout the afternoon. Numerous local storm reports were documented of large hail, damaging winds, and flash flooding. Unfortunately, one flash flood related fatality was reported when a male driver tried to drive through floodwaters on Hearne Avenue in Shreveport. The truck he was driving in quickly took on water, and while his passenger was able to escape, the driver drowned in the high water.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.4701, -93.7794)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1107540. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.