How 'High Water' got his name

The heaviest rain ever to fall in south Louisiana began on Aug. 8, 1940, when the remnants of a hurricane stalled over the area.
According to R.A. Dyke of the U.S. Weather Bureau, “Over an area centered in Lafayette, Acadia, and Vermilion parishes, rainfall records for the state were broken … with over 37 inches at Lafayette and Crowley and 36.12 inches at Abbeville. The 24-hour falls of 19.76 inches at Crowley and 19.63 inches at Lafayette … have been exceeded in the State only by the record fall of 21.40 inches at Alexandria on June 15-16, 1886.”
It had already been a wet year. Bayous and rivers were full and the ground was soaked even before the tropical rainfall. The result was inundation that in some places rivaled the Great Flood of 1927.
The storm that caused it all wasn’t much of anything. Hurricane force winds were felt over a very small area just west of Port Arthur on the morning of Aug. 7. Then the winds died away, but the rain got worse and began to move on a curving path over southwest Louisiana. That still wasn’t too bad, until the rainstorm stopped moving and sat down on top of Acadiana.
Almost two million acres in southwest Louisiana went under water by at least one foot. A fire in the town of Iowa burned down Shell Oil’s district offices and warehouses because firefighters couldn’t get to the buildings.
The August edition of the Monthly Weather Review described the storm’s size and track.
“Heavy rain squalls and fresh to strong shifting gales were encountered by vessels in the central and north‑central portions of the Gulf of Mexico on Aug. 5. ... The disturbance continued in a west‑northwest direction during the 6th, which carried the center … toward Texas, where it passed inland on Aug. 7, just east of the Sabine. The storm at this point was of small diameter, with the path of hurricane winds about 20 miles wide in the Port Arthur‑Sabine area.”
On Aug. 8, the day after the storm came ashore, the Associated Press reported an “all-night rain … turned southwest Louisiana into a flooded area, marooning thousands of persons and temporarily paralyzing business.” Water stood five feet high or higher in parts of Crowley, Lafayette, Kaplan, and other towns and long stretches of the road between Lafayette and Abbeville were submerged.
The news got worse the next day.
The AP reported on Aug. 9, “Southwest Louisiana cities, in some instances completely flooded by nearly 20 inches of continuous rain in the past 48 hours, called today for more boats to rescue the marooned and for emergency rations to feed thousands of refugees. … At least 3,000 people [are] in need of food and clothing.”
A plane that flew over Gueydan on Aug. 10 reported hundreds of people stranded by high water, some of them having to climb onto their rooftops.
Red Cross officials said 700 refugees were being cared for at Lafayette and more than 2,000 others had been sent to Abbeville, Lake Charles, and Morgan City. Between 200 and 300 people from St. Landry Parish were taken from flooded lowlands to Opelousas by boat. Some of the St. Landry refugees said water had reached the windows of their houses.
By Aug. 14 the flood was beginning to recede and refugees were trickling home “to contemplate the huge damage,” according to the AP, although “Red Cross agencies were still … aiding … approximately 25,000 homeless in various … camps on the edge of the affected area.”
The flood did bring out a bit of grim humor. The AP reported from Crowley on Aug. 12: “Two children born of Southwestern Louisiana refugee parents will have life-long occasion to remember the floods which inundated their homes in the summer of 1940.”
One of them was named High Water Broussard and the other had to live with the name of Submarine Johnson.

You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.