They had lived with it for over a month. The torrential rains, which had begun in the spring of 1993, had come again in June and continued to fall on the already saturated fields. The waters of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois Rivers and their tributaries soon spilled over once-protective levees, causing billions of dollars in damage and destruction. Tens of thousands of acres of farmland and crops were destroyed, water treatment plants were closed, roads and bridges were severely damaged or destroyed, and entire communities were inundated, leaving many thousands homeless. Lee and his friends and neighbors had not witnessed such devastation since the floods of 1973.