541 flood insurance claims·$9.8M paid·18 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 Natchitoches 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 thunderstorms and heavy rainfall systems dominates the flood history of Natchitoches Parish, accounting for the vast majority of local flood events over the last 30 years alongside river floods, tropical storms, and hurricanes. Recent events include slow-moving bands of heavy rain that produced excessive totals across southern Natchitoches Parish in July 2024, as well as a cluster of thunderstorms driven by high instability and strong outflows in August 2025.
Federal flood insurance data demonstrates that flood risk extends beyond high-risk zones. Properties in FEMA Zone A have accumulated 381 claims with an average payout of $23,830 and an average recorded water depth of 13 inches. Meanwhile, properties in Zone X have experienced 120 claims averaging $23,414 with an average recorded water depth of 11 inches.
Homeowners, real estate agents, and journalists should pay the most attention to properties located in mapped high-risk areas like Zone A, while recognizing that substantial flood claims and standing water depths also affect properties situated in moderate-to-low risk Zone X areas.
Summary written from NOAA storm reports and NFIP claims for this county. Not a prediction.
Less than 1% of Natchitoches Parish’s flood insurance claims were on properties rated outside FEMA’s high-risk zones.
382 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 12 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 127 claims and $5.5M 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.
58 NOAA storm reports from Natchitoches Parish describe what happened, in the words of the forecasters who covered it. Read the Louisiana flood stories →
41 federal disaster declarations since 1977, 18 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.
101 since 1996: 87 flash floods and 8 river or area floods.
| Event | Date | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Flash Flood | Aug 20, 2025 | — |
| Flash Flood | May 6, 2025 | — |
| Flash Flood | Jul 26, 2024 | — |
| Flash Flood | Jul 24, 2024 | — |
| Flash Flood | May 13, 2024 | — |
| Flash Flood | Jan 2, 2023 | — |
| Flash Flood | Aug 27, 2020 | — |
| Hurricane (Typhoon) | Aug 27, 2020 | — |
— = no damage estimate in the record. Source: NOAA Storm Events Database.
Flash Flood · Aug 20, 2025. A cluster of thunderstorms developed across Northern Louisiana during the afternoon on August 20th. As these thunderstorms and associated outflow boundaries moved south, they encountered increasing instability with temperatures in the upper 90s and dewpoints in the mid 70s, yielding 2500 J/kg MLCAPE. Despite the rather favorable thermodynamic environment, shear was quite weak. This weak shear resulted in very unor…
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 · Jul 26, 2024. A broad complex of showers and thunderstorms with associated heavy rainfall developed across areas of Deep East Texas and West Central Louisiana by mid to late morning on July 26th. This occurred within an elongated axis of upper-level energy observed along much of the middle and upper Texas coast and up across interior areas of East Texas around the eastern flank of a broader mid-level trough over the Southern Pl…
Flash Flood · Jul 24, 2024. Slow-moving bands of locally training showers and thunderstorms produced extremely heavy rainfall rates and excessive totals across southern Natchitoches Parish on the morning of July 24th. The convection was associated with a weak mid-level shortwave perturbation and an associated low-level trough, while also interacting with a very moist and moderately unstable air mass that was pooling northward from the Gulf o…
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 Natchitoches 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.