March 7, 2016 began as any normal day with rain in the forecast. You could smell the rain as it approached, but what happened next was unexpected. It rained like it always does this time of year. My phone began to vibrate violently as it showed that Lincoln Parish was under a flash flood watch. Soon after this alert, I was alerted about a tornado watch and then a tornado warning. This was my first major storm away from my parents, so of course, I was panicking.
Storms have never really bothered me. I was always the one who asked if I could go back to bed as soon as I got into the interior room in my house. I was never scared until I no longer had the comfort of my parents there with me. The rain came down continuously and the sirens went off a couple of different times. Finally, I decided to try and sleep through the storm considering classes were starting the next morning. Or so I thought. When I woke up I had a text message from the Louisiana Tech “Emergency Notification System” that said that classes were cancelled due to the flooding. Not realizing how much it had rained, I looked out my window, shocked. My neighbor’s driveway was completely covered in water, as was the street that I live on.
I thought that maybe the rain would stop soon; unfortunately, this was not the case. It continued to rain throughout the day and for the next couple of days. One minute it was pouring, the next it would be lighter. During the day, my phone was vibrating non-stop with alert messages informing me of the flash flood warning that I thought would never end. The flooding in Ruston was detrimental, however, the rest of the state was in a much worse position. Entire cities were flooded and homes had to be evacuated. People lost valuable items and some had no way in reaching their family and homes from other towns due to nearly every road being closed. Ruston, LA had become an island in a sea of destruction.
We lost three days of school because of the flood, and while many students probably saw this as a nice extension to the break, it wasn't.
