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Flood, Des Moines, Iowa, 1993

Floodwaters cover the Des Moines Girls Club baseball field during the summer of 1993. In June, a series of unexpected and unprecedented downpours caused the Mississippi River to jump its banks in Minnesota, but by mid-July, the waters had moved into Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois. By the end of the summer, banks were breeched and levees were broken killing 50 people and causing billions of dollars of damage to the region.

(Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "The Great Flood of '93," January 1994, National Geographic magazine)

Photograph by Jodi Cobb