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.

The Guadalupe River has a history of deadly flooding. Here is a look over the decades. (AP video Marshall Ritzel/Albee Zhang)