CENTRAL, La. (WAFB) - Bruce Bacon will never forget the morning the water came rushing into his home.
“I woke up that morning, I opened the door, and water was at the door,” he said. “I told my wife to put some coffee on and that we need to start putting stuff up. Before the coffee started to drip, water was in the house.”
It happened during the historic 2016 flood, which dumped more than two feet of rain across parts of south Louisiana. Bacon’s home in Central took in nearly 29 inches of water. Since then, he’s lived with the fear that it could happen again.
That fear was strong enough to make him cancel a recent vacation. “We were supposed to go to the coast for three days this morning,” he said. “But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t enjoy myself worrying about 8 to 10 inches of rain falling back home.”
Now, the city of Central hopes a new online tool will help ease that kind of worry.
It’s called EarlyFloWs. It’s a forecasting system that gathers data from rain gauges placed throughout the city and uses it to predict how much rain each neighborhood could see up to 24 hours in advance.
Central Mayor Wade Evans said the system was created to help people feel safer and make better decisions during severe weather.
“Any time you can give your people some peace of mind, it matters,” Evans said.
The goal is to help families prepare ahead of time, instead of reacting in the moment. Officials say the system will also assist city workers in making faster, more informed decisions before and during storms.
Evans compared the system to the kind of awareness many wished they’d had before major storms in years past.
“How many of us have asked, ‘Why didn’t they just leave?’” Evans said. “It’s hard to believe something bad will happen until it does. This tool helps people see what might be coming.”
As heavy rain heads toward the Baton Rouge region again this week, city leaders hope EarlyFloWs can help prevent the kinds of losses that still haunt residents like Bacon.
“We can’t control the weather,” Evans said. “But we can control how we prepare for it.”
EarlyFloWs is available to the public. To check rainfall projections for your area, visit here.