CNN || Mississippi River towns rush against rising water

Residents of this small town in Illinois, like many others who live along the banks of the surging Mississippi River, raced against the clock Tuesday to erect a makeshift levee as rising floodwaters threatened.

"I'm not moving, not moving my business," said Byron Sebastian, a longtime resident of Gladstone, Illinois, who also serves on the city council. "We've got a lot of good people here helping to try to save this part of town."

Gladstone is one of many towns under threat Tuesday after rising waters breached a 300-foot area of a levee near Gulf Port, Illinois, before 5 a.m.

Levees all along the mid-Mississippi were being topped with sandbags Tuesday as the river, fed by its flooded tributaries, continued to rise.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich called up 1,100 National Guard members to assist in sandbagging efforts, said Patti Thompson of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. She also said inmates are helping on the levees and others are bagging sand in correctional institutions.

"We were very, very disappointed that this levee broke today," said Thompson. "It's a very powerful river, and it can be hard to harness."

With the help of the National Guard, Sebastian and his fellow residents hustled Tuesday to build a barrier between Gladstone and the encroaching floodwaters.

Even though Gladstone is about four miles from the banks of the Mississippi, the rising floodwaters have submerged homes and created rivers where crop fields once stood.

The muddy townspeople worked with anxious resolve, cracking the occasional joke, as they filled bags with sand and dirt and loaded them onto ATVs.

On the receiving end were members of the Illinois National Guard, who piled up the sandbags as the tops of cornstalks rose above the waters behind them.

"Threats can happen in all shapes and forms, so we are trying to help out," said National Guardsman Capt. Lanny Finn, whose unit previously served in Iraq. "We'll be here for as long as we're needed."