With more than 170 still missing, communities must reconcile how to pick up the pieces around a waterway that remains both a wellspring and a looming menace.

The recent disaster has some thinking back to a similar tragedy almost 40 years ago that occurred in the same month and nearly the same place.

In what experts call "Flash Flood Alley," the terrain reacts quickly to rainfall steep slopes, rocky ground, and narrow riverbeds leave little time for warning.

HUNT, Texas (AP) — Crews used backhoes and their bare hands Wednesday to dig through piles of debris that stretched for miles in the search for more than 160 people believed to be missing in the flash floods that laid waste to state’s Hill Country.

More than 100 bodies have been recovered, but another 160+ people are still missing after the flash floods days ago.