The American insurance industry says natural disasters have already caused five billion dollars in damage this year. A record number of tornadoes struck along a path from Texas to Georgia. The storms killed more than two hundred people in six states. At the same time, states like Texas and Oklahoma are experiencing extremely dry weather and high winds that have caused wildfires.

President Obama plans to inspect the flooding on Monday. He will visit Memphis, Tennessee, where the Mississippi River reached nearly record levels earlier this week.

The river has been setting records in places like Vicksburg in the state of Mississippi. But experts say the situation would have been far worse if not for the levees, spillways and other flood controls built along the river. These have been built since nineteen twenty-seven, when flooding killed more than one thousand people.

In North Vicksburg, friends and family members have been helping Joann Parks prepare to leave.

Floodwaters invade the center of historic Vicksburg, Mississippi, where a famous Civil War battle took place. The town has suffered record flooding this spring.

JOANN PARKS: "It is just a lot of things that have got to go. Some of the things have got to go, some of the thing I don't know where we are going to store it. It's just hard, I know there is a lot of things we are not going to be able to save."

Vicksburg lies where the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers meet. There was an important battle there in eighteen sixty-three during the Civil War -- which still makes it a popular stop for visitors.