41 flood insurance claims·$485,752 paid·13 federal flood & hurricane disasters
Share of the whole county outline, rivers and lakes included; parts FEMA hasn’t mapped count as zero.
Shaded areas are FEMA’s mapped flood hazard zones in and around Bienville Parish, Louisiana. Zoomed out they are simplified; at street level the map switches to FEMA’s exact layer. Tap anywhere to check that spot, or search an address above.
Flash flooding from severe weather events dominates the flood history of Bienville Parish, supported by 28 recorded flash flood events alongside standard floods, tropical storms, and hurricanes over the last 30 years. NOAA storm records document significant flash flooding driven by unstable air masses and convective systems, including events in April 2024, June 2024, and May 2025.
Federal flood insurance claims data shows that high-risk Zone A locations experience the heaviest impacts, accounting for 34 claims with an average payout of $13,547 and an average recorded water depth of 4 inches. Additional claims are distributed across unknown zones, shaded X zones, and unshaded X zones, where average payouts ranged from $1,855 to $4,210 with recorded water depths averaging 0 to 5 inches.
Homeowners, real estate agents, and journalists should pay the most attention to properties located within Zone A, which face the highest frequency and severity of flood claims in the parish.
Summary written from NOAA storm reports and NFIP claims for this county. Not a prediction.
8% of Bienville Parish’s flood insurance claims were on properties rated outside FEMA’s high-risk zones.
37 NFIP claims with a recorded rated flood zone, 1978 to date. The zone is the one FEMA used to rate that policy, which may not match today’s map. Source: OpenFEMA NFIP claims.
In flood insurance claims here that reported a flood depth, the average was 4 inches.
Drawn to scale against an 80-inch door. Even a few inches soaks flooring, the bottom of the drywall and anything plugged in near the floor.
Average of the depths reported on claims (zero and implausible values left out); FEMA’s record doesn’t say exactly where each depth was measured. Source: OpenFEMA NFIP claims.
The worst year was 2016, with 6 claims and $182,094 paid, the year of Severe Storms and Flooding.
Bar height is scaled by square root so ordinary years stay visible next to the worst one. NFIP claims by year of loss. Source: OpenFEMA.
23 NOAA storm reports from Bienville Parish describe what happened, in the words of the forecasters who covered it. Read the Louisiana flood stories →
35 federal disaster declarations since 1977, 13 of them floods, coastal storms or hurricanes.
| Disaster | Began |
|---|---|
| Severe Winter Storm | Jan 23, 2026 |
| Tropical Storm Francine | Sep 10, 2024 |
| Tropical Storm Nicholas | Sep 12, 2021 |
| Hurricane Ida | Aug 26, 2021 |
| Tropical Storm Ida | Aug 26, 2021 |
| Severe Winter Storm | Feb 11, 2021 |
| Severe Winter Storms | Feb 11, 2021 |
| Tropical Storm Zeta | Oct 26, 2020 |
Weather and water disasters only; most recent first. Source: OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations.
42 since 1996: 28 flash floods and 9 river or area floods.
| Event | Date | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Flash Flood | May 6, 2025 | — |
| Flash Flood | Apr 28, 2024 | — |
| Flash Flood | Jun 3, 2024 | — |
| Tropical Storm | Aug 27, 2020 | — |
| Flash Flood | Apr 22, 2020 | — |
| Tropical Storm | Oct 9, 2020 | — |
| Flash Flood | Apr 13, 2019 | — |
| Flash Flood | Feb 22, 2018 | — |
— = no damage estimate in the record. Source: NOAA Storm Events Database.
Flash Flood · May 6, 2025. An upper level low pressure system over the Desert Southwest shifted east through the Intermountain West on May 6th, inducing surface low development over West Texas. This also resulted in a tightening pressure gradient across the Southern Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley, with increased southerly low level winds allowing for a warm front to shift north to the I-20 corridor of East Texas and North Louisiana bef…
Flash Flood · Apr 28, 2024. Regenerative thunderstorm development occurred during the afternoon on April 28th across Central Texas along existing outflows from an MCS that decayed earlier in the morning. Surface temperatures continued to warm into the upper 70s to lower 80s within cloud breaks south and east of the large-scale outflow boundary across East Texas into North Louisiana. This led to moderate buoyancy with upper 60s to lower 70s s…
Flash Flood · Jun 3, 2024. A linear mesoscale convective system (MCS) advanced southeast into the Ark-La-Tex from Oklahoma during the afternoon and evening hours on June 3rd. A pocket of strong instability was present ahead of the line, where MLCAPE values ranged from around 2500 to 3500 J/kg range and surface dew points were in the 70s. Instability along with strong large-scale ascent associated with a vorticity maxima and low-level conver…
Tropical Storm · Aug 27, 2020. Major Hurricane Laura tracked north northwest across the Central and Northern Gulf of Mexico from the Central Carribean Sea near Cuba, making landfall in Southwest Louisiana near Cameron around 1 am on August 27th as a strong Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds near 150 mph, and a minimum central pressure of 938 mb. Laura remained a hurricane as it tracked north across Southwest and Central Louisiana…
National Weather Service narratives, lightly trimmed. Source: NOAA Storm Events Database.
Every colour on the map above is a place on this drawing: where the ground sits relative to the flood FEMA plans for.
If a building in Bienville Parish is in a high-risk zone (A or V) and its mortgage comes from a federally regulated or insured lender, or is federally backed, flood insurance is required.
Outside those zones it is optional, and often worth having: from 2014 to 2024 nearly one-third of NFIP claims came from outside the high-risk Special Flood Hazard Area. Since Risk Rating 2.0, NFIP premiums are set for each building, so the only reliable price is a quote: FloodSmart.gov or a local agent.