View this article online: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southcentral/2016/03/10/401535.htm
A large storm system has drenched areas in Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas that were already inundated with heavy rainfall this week. Two people have drowned in Oklahoma and Texas. Nearly a foot of rain fell over parts of northwest Louisiana on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning and more rain is on the way, the National Weather Service said.
The heavy rain flooded up to 80 homes in Louisiana, and a nursing home near Minden, La., was evacuated. There were some high water rescues and water rose in the Webster Parish Courthouse.
A flash flood warning was in effect for parts of eastern Texas, southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana, and forecasters said some of the areas could see damaging winds and isolated tornadoes on well.
Flash flooding was expected from the Texas Gulf Coast to southern Illinois, with the heaviest rain likely to fall in southeast Texas and the Ozark and Ouachita mountains of Arkansas, the National Weather Service said.
In rural southeastern Oklahoma, a 30-year-old man drowned Tuesday night after trying to drive his SUV across a low-crossing bridge that was covered by floodwaters. In Texas, a 22-year-old man drowned Monday night after his canoe capsized in Dickinson Bayou, southeast of Houston near Galveston Bay.
Up to 7 inches of rain was expected through Wednesday and up to 12 inches by the end of the weekend along the Texas-Louisiana border and central Arkansas. Flash flood watches have been issued Wednesday for areas from Port O’Connor, Texas, to near Springfield, Illinois.
Some flooding was reported late Tuesday in northwestern Louisiana between Shreveport and Minden.
The flooding comes after recent severe thunderstorms raged across parts of Central and North Texas. A tornado struck a mobile home park in the North Texas town of Tolar on Monday morning, smashing some homes and injuring two people after two other tornadoes late Sunday injured two people in the North Texas towns of Stephenville and Cool.
Storm winds damaged dozens of boats Tuesday at Lake Benbrook near Fort Worth, Texas, dismasting some of them and tossing picnic tables into the lake.
In Central Texas, a school bus flipped after going off a rain-slick road in a crash that left the driver and another adult on board slightly hurt.
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office says two special-needs children on board were not injured in the weather-related accident Wednesday.
Sheriff’s spokesman James Keith says the Boerne Independent School District bus was on its morning route when the driver lost control on a curve, the vehicle went off the road and overturned. The driver and a monitor were transported to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries.
A district official says the bus was headed to Boerne-Samuel V. Champion High School and to Boerne Middle School South.
Both children were released to their parents.
Boerne is 25 miles northwest of San Antonio.
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