JEFF FLOCK, CNN CHICAGO BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): There is beauty in the lapping waters of the Mississippi and its mirror to Illinois and Missouri and beyond. But in the water's reflection today, pictures of disaster in Mark Twain's hometown. Floating down Sycamore Street in Hannibal, Missouri, you can already see the damage. The river crested once here at 28 feet and there is concern that there could be another crest, which could bring them even more trouble.</s>FLOCK: This is generally regarded as the flood in U.S. history. It was just so massive and I think the damage estimates were something like $10 billion when it was all done. I mean, this water covered 16 million acres at one point, 40,000 businesses and homes damaged, 50,000 people driven out of their homes.</s>FLOCK: This is South Main Street in Hannibal, and as you can see, several vehicles, businesses, homes, anything that is down here, is now under water.</s>FLOCK: The rain had started in April and it just kept raining and raining in the Mississippi Basin, and it just built up such tremendous water that it was a massive wall of water that came down, and it just flooded community after community after community after community.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our whole life is down here under water.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have got a lot of people that are homeless, you know, and they lost everything they had worked for all their lives.</s>FLOCK: This disrupted people's lives for just months and, in fact, years for some of them because so many people were driven out of their homes.
CNN 20: Flooding in the Midwest, July 4, 1993