JONESBORO, Ill. -- Were a couple guys in a jon boat, armed with dynamite, arrested this week? Officials say no: that's just another of the many rumors running as rampant as floodwaters.

Jody Eberly, with Tri-County Flood Information in Jonesboro, said she has heard the dynamite rumor a couple times. "That was an early one."

Her favorite is a story of a gentleman "from one side of the river smashing into the levee on the other side of the river trying to relieve the pressure on his side of the Mississippi.

"I've heard both that the man was from Missouri and that the man was from Illinois," she said. The tale is untrue.

"We got a call that the East Cape Girardeau bridge pillar had shifted one morning," Eberly said. Also untrue.

Most calls concern rumors about levee breaks or evacuation orders.

So far, except at Miller City, levees in Southern Illinois are holding. Voluntary evacuations have been suggested for residents of East Cape Girardeau, McClure, Jacob, Gorham and Grand Tower.

"There is more activity like that on Saturday than other days," Eberly said. "During the week people are sandbagging and moving things, but people don't seem to notice the activity.

"On the weekend everybody hops out to coffee shops, hears and sees all the things going on."

She said residents of Southern Illinois may be getting edgy.

"I think every day that goes by and the levees hold is good news. But every day the levees hold, they get more saturated. People are on a pin point waiting."

Many people call with reports about sandboils. Most of those reports are true.

However, she said, even sandboils lend fodder for rumors.

A hog trough was placed on top of a sandboil near Wolf Lake, Eberly said. "The rumor was that the hog trough had disappeared into the sandboil," she said. "That didn't happen. They did have a little trouble there though."

Eberly said the information center is equipped to gather the most current information on the flooding situation.

"We have a radio system that runs from Olive Branch to Cora," she said. "We have radios out with the Corps of Engineers, levee district officials, county sheriffs, we are all tied in together. If something should happen we would hear about it immediately."

If someone calls in with a rumor she hasn't heard, the story can be checked out quickly.

Mark Hasheider, emergency operation coordinator for Cape Girardeau, said he too has been getting calls from concerned people.

"I think these are legitimate concerns based on erroneous information," Hasheider said.

He said people misinterpret stories they hear or work they see being done.

"Agencies are doing mitigation activities to stop something from happening," Hasheider said. "But people see the activity and think something is happening.

"Maintenance is going on on the levees and people interpret it as something going wrong."