Kay Jones
AC360° Staff

"House For Sale: Riverfront Property"

That's the first sign I noticed after we pulled into Grafton, Illinois, today. Pretty typical sign, but in a not so typical situation.

The Mississippi River has risen to the bottom of the gate where the sign is hanging, about 200 yards from where the river usually stops.

Today, reporter Gary Tuchman, our CNN crew, and I hung out with the owners of Jimbo's General Store & Hardware, Jim and Linda Tolley. They say the flooding so far is not as bad as it was in 1993, but as we were wrapping up our day with them, a new predicition on Wednesday's river crest came in... and it's another 5-6 inches higher than what they were told yesterday.

While Gary and our cameraman, Dave, were taking a boat tour of the area with Jim, his wife, Linda, and I chatted about the river's rise. She told me that they've been experiencing high water levels for six weeks and that it was only a matter of time before the town saw the flooding.

She also said that Grafton isn't protected by a levee, so she was expecting some water. Just not this much.