Flash Flood — Rapides, Louisiana

2009-10-22 · near Alexandria Southwest, Rapides, Louisiana

Event narrative

KALB-TV and the Alexandria Town Talk newspaper reported significant flooding across Alexandria and Pineville. Several underpasses across Alexandria were flooded, with high water in many ditches and culverts across Pineville. A 12 year old boy playing on his bicycle in a drainage ditch near the intersection of McDermott and Fairbrook Streets in Pineville was swept away by the fast current, and died two days later in an Alexandria hospital.

Wider weather episode

A line of strong to severe thunderstorms developed along a cold front and moved eastward across southwest Louisiana during the late morning and afternoon hours. Ahead of the line, numerous supercells developed across the northern Gulf of Mexico and moved northward across the area. Two of the supercells spawned a total of 6 tornadoes, while several reports of damaging winds were received with the line of storms. All of these storms combined to produce widespread heavy rainfall and flash flooding across the entire area.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (31.3017, -92.4953)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 200122. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.