Nauvoo no longer threatened by flooding

Although water is still seeping through the saturated ground near a historic site in Nauvoo, Ill., the city is no longer threatened by massive flooding that has devastated the Midwestern United States this June, according to a public affairs missionary for the LDS Church.

Water pumps continued Monday to move water away from the historic Nauvoo House, a hotel of sorts started as a kind of public works project under the direction of Joseph Smith Jr. The Nauvoo House is now owned by the Community of Christ, formerly the RLDS church.

"No damage has been done," said Donna Whisenant, who is serving as a public affairs missionary with her husband, Vern, in Nauvoo. "Right now they are watching it and hoping as the river goes down, they will not have that seepage coming in."

As for the rest of Nauvoo — where sites owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were never threatened by flood waters — things are returning to normal, she said.

"Everything in Nauvoo in drying up," she said. "We are gearing up enthusiastically, expectation wise, for the Nauvoo Pageant, which will start in July."

Even weekend reports that the Mississippi River, which crested near Nauvoo last week, was rising again have passed. Water Street is still closed, Whisenant added. But, she said, there is no danger. "None of the sandbagging broke around here at all."

LDS missionaries and Brigham Young University students participated in sandbagging efforts in Nauvoo and assisted in flood relief efforts in other parts of Illinois and in Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin.

In response to the flooding, the LDS Church sent 16 truckloads of supplies — including shovels and wheelbarrows — to the impacted area; members distributed 26,000 cleaning kits and 15,000 hygiene kits, according to a Church Welfare Services report.

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