It’s a slow-motion disaster that’s only expected to get worse.

Floodwaters are rising all over Missouri, southern Illinois, eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas, pushing residents from their homes and leaving at least 22 dead. Many rivers, including the Mississippi, have yet to crest, and as those waterways continue to swell, the danger only grows.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon activated the National Guard on Tuesday to support emergency personnel and protect communities from the historic winter floods.

Up and down the Mississippi River, one of several rivers rising rapidly across the region, crews worked quickly to prepare sandbags and check levees to ensure they were ready to lessen the effects of the flooding, however possible.

“This is probably one of the earliest (times) we’ve seen flooding on the Mississippi River,” said Marty Pope, senior service hydrologist with the National Weather Service office in Jackson, Mississippi, during a Monday news conference with Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant.

According to Dr. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground, the Mississippi River at St. Louis was at moderate flood stage on Monday afternoon and is forecast to crest on Wednesday at the second highest level ever observed, just five feet below the all-time record set during the disastrous flood of 1993.

Read the article “22 Killed by Historic Flooding after Winter Storm Goliath” on weather.com.