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.