--- id: 20180801_lessons_from_the_storm title: BLOG - Lessons From the Storm category: Biblical Life Counsel predicted_narrative_arc: disaster-memory-to-mercy-ethic sentiment: Grateful emotions: - Compassionate - Wonder - Resolute keypoints: - Personal experience of Hurricane Harvey changed Dean and the community - After the storm, anger, prejudice, and political protest briefly stopped in Houston - At a grade-school assembly point, volunteers ferried 1500+ people to shelter — often strangers' homes - Drivers kept filling the line without talk of reimbursement - James 2:12–13 (mercy) frames Dean's prayer to never forget storm-taught neighbor love summary: > Looking back on Hurricane Harvey, Dean Rush recounts how disaster briefly ended public anger and prejudice in Houston and replaced them with neighbor love. He and Vickie worked a grade-school rescue hub where volunteers delivered more than 1500 people to addresses — or took strangers home — without asking pay. He cites James on mercy and prays never to forget what flood-forced love looked like. tags: - blog - human-resources - hurricane-harvey - houston - mercy - james-2 - volunteers - neighbor-love - disaster - dean-rush sycophancy: 0 truth_score: 8 entropy: 3 sample: false consent: owner_approved agent: blog created: '2018-08-01' updated: '2026-09-09T00:00:00Z' vault_stage: 07_CODEX headwaters: BLOG prefix: BLOG enrich_status: ok enrich_blockers: [] enrich_method: manual pipeline_filename: BLOG_2018-08-01_lessons-from-the-storm.md source_kind: blog_article proposed_topic: Wisdom lane: Wisdom voice: desk active_voice: desk voices: - desk routing_source: carbon corpus_topic: Wisdom content_status: active date: '2018-08-01' share_url: https://deanrush.net/blog/lessons-from-the-storm source_url: https://deanrush.net/blog/lessons-from-the-storm site_category: Human Resources archive_month: 2018-08 description: > A year-looking-back Harvey memoir: 1500+ sheltered through stranger-volunteers, prejudice paused, and James's mercy warning as Dean's lasting charge. --- # Lessons From the Storm **Author:** Dean Rush **Original post:** [deanrush.net/blog/lessons-from-the-storm](https://deanrush.net/blog/lessons-from-the-storm) **Archive month:** August 2018 · **Site category:** Human Resources > Voice note: Everything under **Dean's article** is Dean's original prose (lightly cleaned of HTML/image artifacts only). Sections marked **Biblical foundations**, **Scholar sidebar**, **Takeaways**, and **First-time learner** are enrichment for Asker / first readers — not Dean speaking. --- ## Biblical foundations (preface) Dean revisits Harvey to argue that unexpected disaster produced unexpected good: prejudice paused, strangers housed strangers, mercy practiced at scale. He already points to James on mercy. The enrichment undergirds that ethic without softening his eyewitness detail. | Dean's claim | Scriptural undercarriage | | --- | --- | | Unexpected trials can yield unexpected good | God works for good in those who love Him (Romans 8:28); joy/endurance in trials (James 1:2–3) | | Love of neighbor erases party and prejudice in practice | Love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31); show no partiality (James 2:1–4) | | Shelter the stranded without calculating pay | Practice hospitality (Romans 12:13); entertain strangers (Hebrews 13:2); good Samaritan (Luke 10:33–35) | | Mercy received obligates mercy given | James 2:12–13 — judgment without mercy for those who showed no mercy | --- ## Dean's article ### Expecting the Unexpected ![Flood image from Dean's original post](https://deanrush.net/Portals/0/1463%20flood%20image.png) As I look back on my memories of the Hurricane Harvey experience I learned some very interesting lessons. Hurricanes are a disaster that I always viewed as occurring to others. Personally experiencing the disaster changed me and our community. Sometimes headline making disasters can produce positive results. #### There Is Often Value in the Unexpected! After the storm, at least for a few weeks, in the city of Houston and surrounding area, all forms of anger, prejudice, and political protests came to an abrupt end. There was no mention of skin color, difference of language, or political bias. Those things were simply replaced with love of life and people helping their neighbors. > **Scholar sidebar — When crisis silences partiality** > James rebukes churches that seat the rich and shame the poor (James 2:1–4). Harvey did not repeal human sin, but Dean reports a temporary public suspension of the usual scorekeeping — race, language, politics — replaced by help. That is neighbor-love (Mark 12:31) under pressure. The spiritual risk he later names is forgetting when the water goes down. ### Witnessing True Love of Neighbors! The afternoon following the beginning of the floods from the storm Vickie and I worked at a grade school with many others. The school was an assembly point for people who were being rescued from their homes by boat, taken to national guard trucks with huge wheels that kept the truck above the water level, and then brought to the school. When the people came off the trucks with trash bags full of their valuables we asked them if they had a place to go? If they gave us an address they were put in cars driven by volunteers who delivered them to the address. If the family did not have an address for shelter the driver normally said "you are coming to my home". We later learned that some of those people spent that night in the stranger's home and some spent a week or more. At the end of that day we were told more than 1500 people had passed through the system that afternoon at that grade school. That line of cars never ended. We never knew how the drivers were directed to come to the rescue. No one ever said it is too hard or I need to be reimbursed. They just continued to fill in the line of volunteers. > **Scholar sidebar — Strangers' homes, open doors** > Hebrews 13:2 urges hospitality to strangers; Luke 10's Samaritan pays the innkeeper for an injured enemy-neighbor. Dean's grade-school line — "you are coming to my home" — is that ethic without committee meetings. More than 1500 people in one afternoon makes the scale concrete: mercy as logistics, not sentiment. ### GOD Tells Me To Think Beyond The Moment! The scripture tells us that we are to take some time to just love one another and in James it says *"So whatever you say or whatever you do, remember that you will be judged by the law that sets you free. There will be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others. But if you have been merciful, God will be merciful when he judges you."* My prayer is that somehow we never forget to learn from the times when we need God the most. I have determined, that I want to remember what it took to let people love one another and forget their differences. I am thankful for the experience of a flood when people truly loved one another. In Him Dean > **Scholar sidebar — James 2:12–13 as the storm's after-action** > Dean quotes the mercy warning that closes James's partiality section. The "law that sets you free" is not license to forget the poor once dry; it is freedom that still judges lovelessness. His prayer — never forget flood-taught love — is the Asker-relevant charge: remember the grade-school line when ordinary Tuesdays restore the old divisions. --- ## Takeaways 1. **Disaster can teach the untouched.** Harvey ceased to be "someone else's" headline when it hit Dean's community. 2. **Prejudice paused.** For weeks, anger and political protest yielded to helping neighbors. 3. **Hospitality went to scale.** 1500+ people moved through one school; strangers opened homes for a night or a week. 4. **No reimbursement talk.** Volunteers kept filling the line without "too hard" or "pay me." 5. **Remember mercy.** James 2:12–13 and Dean's prayer push storm-love into ordinary memory. --- ## First-time learner ### What is Dean saying in one sentence? Harvey showed Houston — and me — what it looks like when people drop their differences, house strangers, and practice mercy; James warns us not to forget. ### Why James on mercy? Because temporary crisis unity is not enough; Scripture ties our hope of mercy to whether we have shown mercy. Dean wants the flood's lesson to outlast the flood. ### Key verses to read with this post - **James 2:12–13** — Mercy triumphs; lovelessness is judged. - **James 2:1–4** — No partiality. - **Hebrews 13:2** — Show hospitality to strangers. - **Luke 10:33–35** — The Samaritan's costly care. - **Mark 12:31** — Love your neighbor as yourself. - **Romans 12:13** — Practice hospitality. ### A simple practice (Dean's challenge made concrete) Before the week ends, do one "line of cars" act at small scale: give a ride, open a meal seat, or check on someone outside your usual circle — without mentioning cost or credit. ### How this feeds Ask Dean This post is seed material for questions such as: *What did Dean see after Harvey? How should Christians practice hospitality? What does James say about mercy?* Answers should keep Dean's voice primary and use the scholar notes only as supporting biblical scaffolding.