NEW ORLEANS — As floodwaters began receding Monday in northwest Louisiana, emergency officials along Louisiana’s southeastern border with Mississippi were watching the rise of the Pearl River amid widespread flooding that has damaged thousands of homes. ADVERTISING NEW ORLEANS —
NEW ORLEANS — As floodwaters began receding Monday in northwest Louisiana, emergency officials along Louisiana’s southeastern border with Mississippi were watching the rise of the Pearl River amid widespread flooding that has damaged thousands of homes.
The water has started to ebb from flooded subdivisions in south Bossier City on the Red River in northern Louisiana.
National Weather Service forecaster C.S. Ross in Shreveport says it will take at least a week before homeowners can get back to their homes and assess the damage. A 6-mile section of U.S. Highway 71 from Bossier Parish into Red River Parish was covered by water.
Ross said Red Chute Bayou on the east side of Bossier City did not top the levee as feared. He said there was some seepage, but not enough to reach 3,500 homes.
In Arkansas, a fast-moving weekend storm system brought rain, hail and reports of several tornadoes.
Meanwhile, the National Weather Service pushed back its timeline of flooding from the Pearl River at the southern end of the Louisiana-Mississippi line.
Meteorologist Robert Ricks said the river crested Monday afternoon at the Town of Pearl River at 20.3 feet but it had dropped to about 19.9 feet by 6 p.m. He said it would be another 24 hours before the river possibly encroaches on Interstate 10 or other highways.
“It remains to be seen if it will go across the interstate or not,” Ricks said.
That’s short of what forecaster Phil Grigsby earlier predicted the river could reach — 21 feet by late Tuesday or early Wednesday — the height of a 1983 flood.
But Ricks noted the water was still rising downstream, near the cities of Slidell, La., and Pearlington, Miss., and could crest higher along those points.
At least four deaths have been reported in Louisiana amid the flooding that began last week and the search continued for two fishermen missing since Wednesday in Mississippi.
In southeastern Louisiana, St. Tammany Parish officials said the town of Pearl River already was seeing flooding in one neighborhood.
Farther to the south, Louisiana emergency officials said nearly 5,000 homes were damaged.
