Hundreds of levees along the rivers failed and burst, forcing thousands across the country to evacuate. The waters claimed at least 50 lives and destroyed roughly 10,000 homes. Millions of acres of Midwestern farmland were also submerged and remained unusable in the years that followed. The Great Flood was one of the deadliest and most expensive river floods to occur in the US, costing an estimated $15 billion in damages at the time, about $26 billion today.

Read on to learn about America's most violent storms

Revealed: History's DEADLIEST Floods In America, Beyond