NAUVOO, Illinois — Late last week the Mississippi River broke over its banks at Nauvoo and began creeping up Parley Street. By Monday evening the former site of the outdoor musical, “Sunset on the Mississippi,” was under three feet of water. Water lapped at the foundation of the large statue of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, which is normally about half a block from the river’s edge.
The historic sites of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were in no eminent danger. But the river was seriously threatening other areas of Nauvoo.
Gene McEntee manages the Colusa grain elevator on the river bank north of the historic sites. The grain elevator plays an important role in commerce along the Mississippi. A single river barge can be filled with as much as 60 semi-truck loads of corn from the elevator.
On Thursday June 12, McEntee walked into the Nauvoo Pageant Office, where John and Peggy Ricks are serving a mission as pageant administrators. He said the grain elevator was in danger of flooding. He needed help fast and didn’t know where to go for it. He had met Elder and Sister Ricks previously and wondered if they could find some help for him.
He said he was willing to pay $10 per hour. He and his crew had been working on sand bags for three days until midnight but just weren’t able to get enough done fast enough to protect the grain elevator.
Elder Ricks said, “Give me an hour and I’ll see what I can do. I don’t think many will accept your money, but they would be happy to help.” By the time Elder Ricks made a few phone calls to local Church and mission leaders, changed his clothes and drove to the grain elevator, there were already 30 volunteers there. Nauvoo Restoration lawn-mowing crews stopped their work to help, and several site missionaries and local youth had gathered.
“Mr. McEntee was so grateful,” says Elder Ricks.
Early on Friday morning Lachlan Mackay, director of the Joseph Smith Historic Sites, knew he needed help to save the historic Nauvoo House from serious flooding. The building’s crawl space was filling with water faster than its pump could handle. He called the Army Corps of Engineers at 8:00 a.m.; by 10:00 a representative was there instructing and offering help.
Mackay says all that day people and organizations came forward, working together to save the historic building where Emma Smith lived out the last years of her life. The Illinois Department of Transportation supplied a diesel-powered pump. Elder Brent Carlson, serving as director of Nauvoo Restoration, Inc., donated sand and had it hauled to the Nauvoo House and dumped in the parking lot.
“That was an enormous help; it saved us,” Mackay says. “If we would have had to wait to get sand from Ft. Madison or some other place, especially with the bridges being closed, it would have been too late.”
The BYU International Folk Dancers, who were in Nauvoo to perform, came as a group and filled sand bags for three hours, singing hymns as they worked, sometimes in the rain. Later, when thanked for their help, a number of them said this was the greatest service project they’d ever done, and they were thankful for the opportunity.
The dancers were joined by other local volunteers and a family who was holding their family reunion in the Nauvoo House that weekend. With all the help, in three hours the levee was raised by two feet.
On Saturday, Community of Christ Family Camps staying at Camp Nauvoo came to help further. “There has been an absolutely amazing show of support,” Lachlan Mackay says, “and not just by those with an LDS background. Nauvoo means a lot to a lot of people. It is an important historic landmark.”
The lower part of the Smith Family Cemetery that adjoins the Joseph Smith Homestead is under nearly three feet of water, but Mr. Mackay is quick to point out there are no graves in danger of flooding.
Nauvoo citizens of all faiths have answered urgent pleas for volunteers for the past week to fill sandbags in Niota, the little town nine miles north of Nauvoo at the Fort Madison Bridge and in Warsaw to the south of Nauvoo. The Keokuk and Fort Madison Bridges have been closed. The Keokuk Bridge is now open. Visitors planning to come to Nauvoo can call the Historic Visitors’ Center 217/453-2237 for an update on conditions.
The river in most areas has crested. The sun is shining warmly in Nauvoo, the sites are all open, and the Nauvoo Pageant and all pageant activities will go on as scheduled — July 11 th to August 8 th , Tuesday-Saturday.
The unrelenting storms that created the record flooding of 2008 have given the people of Nauvoo and the Midwest an opportunity to come together in caring, neighbor helping neighbor. And that is always the silver lining in any storm.
