seen a street covered like this. >> reporter: kim conway lives in the red star neighborhood of cape girardeau. her city councilman surveyed the damage. vehicles are nearly submerged. voluntary evacuations are under way but many people are reluctant to leave. this area was devastated by a so called "great flood" of 1993. >> i don't think anyone expected this would happen again so soon. >> following that flood government buy out and left their homes. >> what did you learn from the flood of 1993 and improve? >> quite a bit actually. we learned our pumping systems were very old and needed to be upgraded. we've done that. we've learned we had a waste water treatment plant in the floodplain and we've now moved it to high ground and we know what is going to happen at each flood stage foot by foot. >> that seawall can witt stand water up to 53 feet. the. >> david begnaud, thanks. with so many in the path of danger we turn to meteorologist chicago for a-- wbbm. >> st. louis crested yesterday. cape gardeau will crest early tomorrow morning it looks like at 50 feet. a record crest for them. th