It’s been two years since Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc on our Texas coast. The C-Shift was on duty when the torrential downpours began in Houston. E59C had a front row seat to the damage and destruction 27 trillion gallons and 50 inches of rain can cause. Late Saturday night, the city assigned a dump truck with a driver to accompany us.
As the waters rose, the calls for rescues began to pour in nonstop, and our night quickly turned into chaos. Most of our units were useless in the high waters. Our dump truck was a Godsend. Due to some gutsy driving and superior territory knowledge, we were able to make it out of our territory on South Post Oak and into the Sagemont area several miles away where our crew split as another dump truck became available. We immediately began making our way into the neighborhoods filling the back of our dump trucks with men, women, and children who were stranded in their cars or leaving their homes as they filled with water.
One young family had an infant and a toddler with them. They had just moved here a week earlier from Alabama and had driven around aimlessly in an unfamiliar city trying to avoid the flood until eventually the waters trapped them on all sides. My concern quickly turned towards the children as I in my rain gear began to shiver. I worried that the infant or both children would become hypothermic. I began to pray earnestly that God would stop the rain long enough for us to get the children to dry land and clothes. It seemed like the more I prayed, the harder it rained. At one point I looked up to the sky and shouted in anger towards God. Why was He not answering my prayers? Doesn't He care?
It continued to rain, and we continued to make rescues that added to the number of people on our makeshift Ark. Each call sent us down another flood filled road. We zigged and zagged our way in the rain to higher ground trying to get our evacuees to the shelter, but the requests for rescues in our area kept coming, so we kept trying. Each call for help sent us further away from the shelter as the waters continued to rise. Out of nowhere the father of the family says, “Hey, that’s the hotel where we are staying!” I yelled at the driver to stop, and we pulled into the hotel parking lot. God was able navigate the family to the only familiar place to them and into their own dry clothes. I immediately gave thanks to God, because He orchestrated the best rescue of the night for us. We couldn’t have planned that route or outcome in a million years! The hotel was in the exact opposite direction and miles away from where we were trying to travel.
We made countless more rescues that night and over the next few days. My faith was indeed tested. I learned, yet again, that God is faithful. Always. He knows what He is doing even when we don’t see or understand. The LORD tells us in Isaiah, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” So many times I pray and tell the God of the Universe how to answer my prayers. I’m grateful that he forgives my pride, arrogance, and small mindedness. I’m even more grateful that His ways are higher and better.
-Captain Bobby Delgado
HFD Chaplain
