Storm clouds pass over a flooded farm field Dec. 28 in Raddle, Ill. Rain is forecast to subside after Mon. with Mississippi flood waters cresting Thurs. at 49.8 ft. and possibly breaching levees in Southern Illinois. 

Sisters Carrie Witthoft, top right, and Stephanie King, top middle, talk with friend Stacey Smith, top left, of plans for moving their grandfather, Herbert Korando, 83, because of iminent flooding near his Raddle, Ill. home Dec. 28. This is not Korado’s first flood. He recalls several floods in 1943, 1944, 1947, and again in 1993. While other neighbors were evacuating, Korando wanted to give it one more day. 

A crew, including Menard Correctional Center inmates, work to close and sandbag a levee Dec. 28 between Jackson and Randolph Counties in Ill. in anticipation of significant flooding. The Mississippi River is anticipated to crest at 49.8 ft. at Chester, Ill., higher than the flood of 1993. 

Graffiti demands “No trespassing,” on a house near Jacob, Ill. Dec. 29.

Karen Hall, right, looks out over her backyard with her 15-year-old daughter, Miriah Hall Dec. 29 in Jacob Ill. The day before, Karen’s children had used wooden pallets to make a dock in the standing water behind their home. 

A friend drives up the levee Dec. 29 to tak Ron Kranawetter’s livestock to safer ground, away from the potential flooding on his Jacob farm. 

Donnie Stueve watches as trucks are filled with his grain Dec. 29 near Raddle, Ill. As the threat of a levee break increased, farmers in the region hauled their grain and machinery to higher ground.