Spirits high despite threat from Mississippi River

By Nick Carey

QUINCY, Illinois (Reuters) - The volunteers poured in to this riverfront city as the Mississippi River rose, helping top off the city's levees and then joining regulars at Kutter's bar to toast their efforts behind a wall of sandbags.

"I saw what was happening on television and I figured I'd come down and help out," said John King, who arrived from a Chicago suburb on Monday and planned to work through the week.

The collegial atmosphere prevailed among some in Quincy, a picturesque river town with historic red-brick mansions and broad streets, in part because the town is safe atop a bluff, away from the river's projected record-breaking crest.

After bolstering its own levees against the coming flood, volunteers filled sandbags for neighbors.

"It's the smaller communities further upstream that we're really worried about," Quincy Mayor John Spring said.

If Quincy's levee fails, a water filtration plant serving 50,000 people would be lost and leave the city with at most three days of drinkable water. Also down by the river are two plants, one that makes oil pumps which was still operating behind a thick wall of sand and sandbags.

Volunteers arrived from across the Midwest to help with the sweaty work.

"It's great that so many people are willing to come out and help like this. It says a lot about this community," said Bill Duffield, who left his campus ministry job at Quincy University to volunteer.

Across the swollen river in West Quincy, Missouri, spirits also were high at "sandbag headquarters" where truck driver Greg Fredericks praised the preparations.

"The city really got the jump on the flood this time," he said, while delivering sandbags. "The preparation work this time around has been great, much better than in '93."

The reference was to the major flood 15 years ago that turned part of the Mississippi River and its vast watershed into a gigantic inland lake, raising painful memories.

A levee protecting the Missouri side of the river was sabotaged, unleashing flood waters that submerged homes and a vast stretch of farmland. James Scott was imprisoned for "intentionally causing a catastrophe."

A runaway barge sped through the breach and struck a gas station, triggering a fiery explosion to cap the calamity.

A gas station rebuilt on that spot that is usually open around the clock closed on Tuesday.

"We'll be back when the water goes down again," employee Jason Beswick said.

(Writing by Andrew Stern; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)