At 2 a.m. on a Friday—hours after Cyclone Idai struck—Robert Koehn and his wife, Karis, bailed water by the bucketful from their home in Lamego, 51 miles inland from the central port city of Beira in Mozambique. 

The American missionary couple with the Africa Inland Mission lived in the village for more than 18 years. They witnessed past storms and had shuttered their windows in advance. 

“We really had no idea how strong it was going to be.” 

Media reporting on the recent devastating flooding—in places as distant as Mozambique and as close as the Missouri River Valley—brought a new reminder: The doctrine of creation matters. 

Authorities in South Dakota on Monday found the bodies of two workers in a garbage truck that was swept away in the flooded James River, the South Dakota Highway Patrol said. The 61-year-old driver and 46-year-old passenger, whose names were not released, were last seen Thursday leaving a landfill in Mitchell, S.D. Crews spotted a damaged guardrail Saturday on a highway along the river and later found the truck. Flooding in the Midwest has caused at least three deaths, and two men remain missing in Nebraska.

On March 18, four days after Cyclone Idai raged through Mozambique, Rick Emenaker flew over the country’s worst-hit community, the central port city of Beira.

“We saw people on rooftops by the hundreds, and others clinging to trees,” said Emenaker, a disaster response manager with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF). “The floodwaters had completely submerged homes.”

Satellite images released by the European Space Agency showed inland floodwaters measuring 80 miles by 15 miles, drowning homes and villages that once dotted the region.

U.S. weather officials on Thursday predicted unprecedented flooding this spring throughout the country as the Midwest responds to already record water levels. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson declared a state of emergency on Thursday. “The rising floodwaters are affecting more Missouri communities and farms, closing more roads and threatening levees, water treatment plants, and other critical infrastructure,” Parson said in a statement. The Missouri River swelled from this month’s heavy rains and snowmelt and is expected to crest Friday in St.

Vice President Mike Pence visited flood-ravaged Nebraska on Tuesday, meeting with volunteers and first responders and pledging quick federal aid. “To all the families that have seen their homes flooded, seen livestock lost, had their lives, their communities upset by these extraordinary floods and severe weather, our message is this: We’re with you,” Pence said.

Vice President Mike Pence is flying to Nebraska Tuesday to survey the devastation caused by record-breaking floods in several Midwestern states. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, both Republicans, will join him, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.