On June 5, the sky over Lubbock roared like a freight train. Warnings crackled, the TV blinked out, and Rachel Lorton, wife of former Betenbough Homes builder Chris Lorton, gathered Logan and Laney into her closet to ride out what she hoped would be another close call. It wasn’t. Hail shattered bedroom windows and drove glass sideways into the walls. Water pushed across carpet. For a mom on the autism spectrum navigating the storm with two autistic kids — and doing it while her husband, Chris, worked 500 miles away in Oklahoma — the noise, chaos, and isolation were overwhelming.
Rachel prayed for protection and the next right step. Before she could decide what to do, help was already on the way.
As the storm moved on, Dock and Brenda Carriker loaded their family into the car to check damage to their son’s truck that was parked at a dealership. Driving past the Lorton house, Brenda glanced back and saw a jagged black rectangle where windows should’ve been. “Is Rachel still here?” she asked. Dock didn’t know. He’d only recently learned the family was still in Lubbock after picking up a package off Chris’s porch and getting spotted on the doorbell camera. (A funny story worth hearing.) But in that moment, the Carrikers didn’t debate; they turned around.
Dock called Chris. “Is Rachel home with the kids?”
“Yes.”
“I’m on my way.” Click.
When Rachel opened the front door, she fell into Brenda’s arms and sobbed. The Carrikers seemed to know just what to do. Brenda moved toward people, and Dock moved toward problems. Max and David, their oldest boys, started sweeping up glass and scooping water. Brenda toggled between calming Rachel and packing essentials. Their younger two, Joshua and Daisy, played with Logan and Laney so Rachel could think straight for the first time since the sirens started.
Two rooms had taken the worst of it: glass embedded in drywall, hail damage inside and out, water pooling everywhere. The team cleared the big pieces, then Dock headed out for plywood and 2x4s. By the time he returned from the hardware store, Rachel and the kids were on their way to stay with family across town. Dock kept going, boarding windows until the house was secure. Former teammate Mark Singleton, another Betenbough alum, saw the home’s damage and showed up to help.
At midnight, Carpet Tech arrived to remove soaked carpet and set dehumidifiers. On the road from Oklahoma, Chris asked for one more favor: “Would you stay so strangers aren’t in the house alone?” Dock stayed until almost 2 a.m., locked up, and finally headed home, where his own family’s windows still needed boarding. He took care of those the next day.
The next morning, an insurance adjuster would marvel that there was “literally no water damage” to the window stools, baseboards, or sheetrock. Acting fast had preserved more than drywall; it preserved a family’s peace.
Dock refused payment. “That’s not why we came,” he told Chris.
Weeks later, once the roof had been replaced and new windows set, the Lortons closed on their home and headed north. The move was still bittersweet — West Texas had been home for a decade — but what could have become a story of loss became a marker of God’s provision through His people.
For the Carrikers, none of it felt heroic. “We were on our way to check our own mess,” Dock recalls. “We just noticed a need and turned the car around.” For Brenda, the moment was personal. She had once navigated a season of living apart from Dock during a move; she knew the hollow feeling of facing a hard night without your partner. “Being used by God to offer peace and comfort in that situation was an honor,” she says.
And for Chris and Rachel, it was the Betenbough family showing up like they always had — from hospital rooms years earlier when Logan needed emergency surgeries, to a hail-shredded night when a mom needed someone to take care of what she couldn’t. “This was one of the scariest events I have ever experienced, and to have Dock and his family at our home within minutes was the best blessing to ease the intense emotions brought on by this unexpected catastrophe. An entire family didn’t even think twice,” Rachel shares. “They were literal angels.”
Dock feels that credit goes to the Betenbough employee home discount, which fosters Betenbough team members living in communities together. “It supports our worth beyond work. Because of the culture here, we get to value each other as people,” he reflects.
“The Betenbough culture is still impacting me, even after I left,” Chris emphasizes. “I made lifelong friends in that place.”
It’s why relationships here outlast job titles and zip codes. The work is what we do, but people are the purpose. On a night when glass flew sideways and fear tried to flood a home, a family from down the street answered the Spirit’s nudge, turned around, and turned a storm-torn house into holy ground.
