Greatness surfaces after ‘Great Flood’

Central Iowa had seen floods before: 1851, 1881, 1903, 1947, 1954, 1961, 1965, 1969, 1990, and 1992. But when Iowans and the United States National Weather Service speak of the “Great Flood,” they are speaking of the deluge that struck in 1993.

“The Great Flood of 1993 was unprecedented in magnitude and severity across central Iowa,” the (US) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Web site reports. “Total damage (statewide) was estimated at US$2.7 billion.”

A lot of the damage occurred in Iowa’s capital city. Steve Siemens, then president of the Des Moines Kiwanis club, went downtown to view the destruction. He was overwhelmed.

“The streets were canals, and people were moving from house to house in boats,” he remembers. “In some areas, the water had reached the roof levels. It was devastating, but we had to do something.”

While organizing a local response, Steve received an unexpected call from Lincoln, Nebraska.

“It was our Nebraska-Iowa District governor, Milford Hanna,” Steve says. “He told me he had two buses of volunteers headed our way.”

For several days, the Kiwanians went door-to-door, helping residents discard their possessions. Everything—clothes, furniture, toys—were hauled to the curbs and trucked to landfills.

“They lost virtually all their possessions,” Steve says, “even the photographs and keepsakes that were so dear to their memories.”

As club president that year, Steve saw his fellow Kiwanians come together against seemingly impossible conditions. On October 1, 2005, Steve becomes International President and challenges Kiwanians worldwide with one message—born, in part, from his experiences during the Great Flood of 1993: “Together We Can.”

Watch for your October 2005 KIWANIS magazine for more about the farm-raised preacher’s son who became a “Kiwanian by choice.”