Rescuers In Boats, Helicopter, Truck Save 12 In Flooded Illinois Town

June 17, 2008 9:32 p.m. EST

Gulf Port, IL (AHN) - A dozen people were rescued here Tuesday when a levee break flooded their farming community and stranded them there.

Rescuers on boats saved two people sandbagging a levee while a helicopter plucked three people from a rooftop. A four-wheeler truck also took seven other stranded people to a railroad track as floodwaters rushed in from a levee hole created by the rising Mississippi river. The rest of the 200 residents of the town had been evacuated earlier due to the threat of a levee break.

Only two residents remained behind, Henderson County Sheriff Mark Lumbeck told MSNBC.msn.

With the break threatening to inundate a highway leading to the Great River Bridge, authorities were forced to ban travel along the bridge that connects Gulf Port to Burlington, Iowa. Car traffic on the bridge in Fort Madison was also halted.