"It came like a tidal wave," said Mayor Frank J. Gilly of Bound Brook, N.J., a 74-year-old resident of the region's hardest-hit community.

One of the hardest-hit communities was Munster, where 5,000 residents had to be evacuated as a result of the Little Calumet River overflowing in many spots and breaking through the levee near the Calumet Avenue bridge.

As the missing move to the lists of the dead, a geography of last week's terrorism is emerging in the hardest-hit communities, which are usually a comfortable distance from the city's hazards.

To the west, near Guerneville, one of the hardest-hit communities two months ago, the Russian River was also on the rise.

"That is a good thing from a cleanup standpoint," said Tom Mays, the Mayor of Huntington Beach, the hardest-hit community, about 35 miles south of here.

But calling for programs to target the hardest-hit communities must not preclude prevention efforts for less devastated communities.

The hardest-hit community was Eustis, Florida where at least 50 houses were damaged, many of which were destroyed.

Among the hardest-hit Bavarian communities were Rotenfels, Miltenberg, Lohr, Neu stadt and Klingenberg.

Residents of the hardest-hit communities were forced to wade to safety, in some cases through water shoulder-high.

Watonga, Kingfisher and Geary were the hardest-hit communities, where many houses and buildings were flooded.