Residents and tourists alike flocked to the grand staircase at the Gateway Arch to see the Mississippi River unmoored from its banks. Video footage provided by Susan Berthold

During the Great Flood of '93, the Mississippi River climbed half-way up the grand staircase of the Gateway Arch to its highest level recorded in the city of St. Louis. Bronze plaques designate the high-water mark — 49.58 feet, set on that Aug. 1.

Today, it’s hard to envision the river reaching that height.

The Mississippi and Missouri rivers set their own rules that summer, overtopping or busting through levees in nine states, including Missouri and Illinois. Fifty people died. At least 10,000 homes were destroyed, and another 40,000 were damaged. State and federal officials calculated the damage at more than $15 billion.

But the numbers don’t capture the misery the flood caused.

A quarter of a century later, people still recall iconic images that played out in the St. Louis region:

The Gummersheimer farmhouse swirling in the brown torrent of the Mississippi near Columbia, Ilinois, and then splintering into pieces.

Propane tanks bobbing in the Mississippi, prompting the evacuation of 5,000 people in south St. Louis and Lemay.

Caskets floating in the Missouri after being unearthed from a cemetery in Hardin, Missouri.

A wet fall in 1992, followed by heavy snow and relentless spring rains set the stage for the record-flooding, according to the National Weather Service .

Local rivertowns were fighting rising water by May, and were in the fight of their lives by July. Despite sweltering heat, thousands answered their calls to help fill sandbags.

The disaster was a watershed event for many floodplain dwellers.

After Valmeyer, Illinois, was submerged by the Mississippi, residents moved their town of 900 to the bluffs above the floodplain.

But the city of Chesterfield, which saw its valley inundated by the Missouri River, opted to strengthen its levees and redevelop the Chesterfield Valley.