Severe weather hit Bossier Parish Monday night, spawning reported tornadoes and causing damage to area homes.
A tornado warning was issued just before 8:30 p.m. Monday night for the area stretching approximately from just north of Jimmie Davis Highway to Taylortown.
Witnesses reported seeing two funnel clouds along U.S. 71 and a reported tornado came through the Sligo Road area before heading south towards Taylortown.
Damage was reported in south Bossier along U.S. 71 just north of Louisiana 527, with a tree down across LA 527. The area south of Jimmie Davis Highway was largely without power.
However, the storms also affected all of the parish with residents of the town of Benton in north Bossier reporting widespread outages and residents of Haughton reporting trees down on their property.
Approximately 5,000 Bossier SWEPCO customers reported outages as of 9:15 p.m. Monday, just as the warning expired for the parish.
Mark Natale, public information officer for the City of Bossier City said as of 9:30 p.m. that the Bossier City Police and Fire Departments had not received any reports of damage or injuries due to the storm, but there were several areas with flooding.
“There have been reports of street flooding at several locations due to the heavy rain that fell as the front moved through town. While the water has receded considerably at most of these locations, Bossier City police advise motorists to be watchful while out on the roads tonight and not drive in areas of high water,” said Natale. “So far this evening, there have been no reports of vehicles stalling out in high water.”
Southeast Shreveport was also affected by tornado activity with the I-49/Bert Kouns area in Shreveport seeing damage in the form of debris and has several downed power lines.
Overall, the storms Monday were part of a larger outbreak that began in the midwest Saturday with 28 reports of tornadoes across nine states Saturday and Sunday, including Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Iowa and Louisiana.
