Many communities in the central U.S. are fighting to stave off rivers surging from relentless rain.

In tiny Dutchtown in southeast Missouri, volunteers have been filling sandbags and tossing them atop a hastily-constructed 6-foot-tall levee. The community of 34 homes and two businesses is near the Mississippi River.

Parts of southern Missouri had 15 inches of rain over a four-day period before Tuesday - and it was pouring down again Tuesday night.

The greatest flooding threat loomed in Poplar Bluff, a southeastern Missouri community of 17,000 residents in the Ozark Mountain foothills. The levee holding the Black River was overtopped in at least 30 places, and one spot just outside of town breached Tuesday morning.