It was a flood of devastating magnitude: 30 feet of water, bearing down on a town of 1 million people, forcing thousands to flee to evacuee camps.

The disaster emphasized schisms between the races and focused attention on politics, and here's the kicker: It happened nearly 80 years ago, in the 1927 Mississippi Flood.

If misery loves company, we can take solace in the fact that Hurricane Katrina isn't the only devastating flood our country has faced and survived. A host of books about previous floods offers stories that eerily echo the nation's current tragedy, down to the bitter, politically charged aftermath.

For those interested in relearning the adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same, here are a few:

Black Cloud: The Great Florida Hurricane of 1928, by Eliot Kleinberg (Carroll & Graf, $26). About the Sept. 16, 1928, hurricane that struck Florida, in which poor evacuation routes and other factors added to the death toll. The book points out the racial schisms involved in the disaster: Many victims were poor blacks, and "the tragedy was compounded by the fact that while white dead were given a decent burial, nearly 700 African-American dead were unceremoniously dumped into a 1.5-acre mass grave in West Palm Beach," according to a plot summary on Amazon.com.

Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History, by Eric Larson (Vintage, $13). A look at the 1900 hurricane that left an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 dead in Galveston, Texas. The book focuses on Isaac Cline, a Weather Bureau employee, and his brother Joseph and details "a time when, standing in the first year of the century, Americans felt like they ruled the world - and that even the weather was no real threat to their supremacy," says Amazon.com. "Nature proved them wrong."

Johnstown Flood, by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster, $14). The story of how a broken dam devastated Johnstown, Pa., in 1889, written by a Pulitzer Prize winner.

The Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, by John Barry (Simon & Schuster, $16). The genesis of the Mississippi Flood and its aftermath, which highlighted racial rifts and altered the political scene, helping to sweep Herbert Hoover into the presidency.

Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, by Willie Drye (National Geographic, $26). The depiction of the hurricane that struck the Florida Keys on Labor Day, 1935, wiping out hundreds of World War I vets who were building bridges as part of the New Deal program and weren't properly evacuated. The book details the partisan investigation that followed.