Remembering the Deadly 1999 Easter Tornado in Caddo and Bossier

While Easter weekend is glorious as we all celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ, a lot of our thoughts have migrated to other aspects of the holiday.

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Children anxiously await the arrival of the Easter Bunny and the annual Easter Egg Hunts culminating in an overflowing Easter basket filled with chocolates and other sweets.

READ MORE: Louisiana Residents Help Drive Easter Spending to Record High

Moms focus on picking out the perfect clothes for her and the kids to wear to Easter church services and making sure she's got all the right ingredients for an amazing Easter lunch.

And for others, thoughts of Easter are painful memories. For many years now, Easter weekend is a reminder of past devastating storms and tornadoes that happen around this time of year. The bad weather forecasted for tomorrow in the Shreveport area doesn't help to put that memory back in the past.

It was Easter weekend; April 2 and 3 of 1999 when an outbreak of 17 confirmed tornadoes ravaged a stretch all the way from Kansas to Louisiana leaving a path of destruction in its wake.

The most powerful of those tornadoes, a 200-yard-wide F4 with 158 to 206-mph winds, essentially destroyed a 19-mile path here in Caddo and Bossier Parishes, while it injured an estimated 102 and claimed the lives of six people just south of Benton.

It was 27 years ago today, on Saturday, April 3, at 3:52 pm, when a supercell thunderstorm formed this massive tornado over Cross Lake which moved to the northeast as it struck 66 buildings doing an estimated $1.6 million in damages in Caddo Parish alone.

At approximately 4:01 pm, the tornado entered Bossier Parish as an F4. Continuing on its northeasterly path, eyewitnesses reported several horses were thrown across the highway as it caused an estimated $6.7 million in the major damage or destruction of a total of 389 structures, including 227 houses and businesses.

It was Louisiana's deadliest tornado since February 21, 1971, when 10 people were killed east of Delhi.