But little prepared him for the rumble of the 7.8-magnitude quake that devastated his adopted home in Turkey on Monday.
The 42-year old joined nearly four million Syrians when he moved his family for the relative safety of southeastern Turkey -- a region that has suffered its own share of violence between militants and government forces.
He spent seven years building a new home in the multi-ethnic city of Diyarbakir. His life was getting back on track.
Now it is gone.
Gurre was forced to spend the past two nights with his wife and two sons on the turquoise carpet of the city's ancient Grand Mosque.
The massive worship house was rebuilt from another huge quake nearly a millennium ago but survived this one unscathed. Gurre felt safe for the moment but uncertain about what happens next.
"When we were in a war, we knew that when the planes flew overhead, it was time to take shelter," Gurre remarked.
Hundreds of others slept with their heads perched on their belongings or walked around covered in blankets as Gurre contemplated his fate.
Women breastfed their newborns while cheerful children -- blissfully unaware of the tragedy unfolding around them -- played in busy corners.
"When the earthquake came at such an unexpected hour, we didn't know what would happen next," Gurre said.
- Worries for Aleppo -
The pre-dawn jolt killed thousands of people in their sleep and left untold more trapped under slabs of concrete in the freezing cold.
Others died in aftershocks that have been rolling across Turkey and parts of neighbouring Syria day and night.
The death toll in both countries has been rising by the hundreds with every hour and surpassed 11,200 on Wednesday afternoon.
Aleppo native Mercan al Ahmad recalled life in Syria where she struggled to find food. Now she can barely sleep again.
"We escaped death in Syria, and now we were struck by an earthquake in Turkey," said the 17-year-old.
"We can't sleep. We are scared. We live in fear of another strong aftershock."
She spends the restless nights and days worrying about her future and her relatives back in Aleppo -- one of the provinces suffering extensive damage in Syria.
"We have relatives in Aleppo. There are many casualties, many houses collapsed," she said. "We heard some of them belong to our relatives."
Ihlas Mohammed said she heard similar news about her loved ones in a village between Aleppo and Idlib.
"We can't get much news about them," she said. "There was a war, we escaped, and now this (quake) happened. We have nothing," she said.
- 'We are all victims' -
The Turkish families taking shelter alongside the Syrian ones pointed out the futility of trying to stir up ethnic and cultural divisions in this restless part of the world.
Turkey became home to the world's largest refugee population after an agreement aimed at stemming Europe's migrant crisis in 2015-16.
But anti-migrant sentiments in Turkey have been rising during a dire economic crisis that has wiped out people's savings and left millions struggling to pay their food and utility bills.
Politicians of all stripes are promising to start sending the Syrians back home in the runup to Turkey's May 14 elections.
Turkish mother Aydegul Bitgin said everyone at the mosque was the same.
"We are here with Syrian refugees, we are all victims," the 37-year-old said.
"There's nothing that we don't need, baby food, wet wipes, diapers. We left our home nothing."
Syria's White Helmets rescuers urge international quake help
Beirut (AFP) Feb 8, 2023 -
The White Helmets leading efforts to rescue people buried under rubble in rebel-held areas of earthquake-hit Syria appealed Wednesday for international help in their "race against time".
First responders from the group that was formed a decade ago to save the lives of civilians during Syria's civil war sprung into action early Monday when a 7.8-magnitude quake rocked Turkey and Syria.
They have been toiling ever since to pull survivors out from under the debris of dozens of flattened buildings in northwestern areas of Syria outside government control.
In a video widely shared on social media, crowds of people surrounding the White Helmets cheered loudly as they lifted a young girl and her family from a collapsed building in Idlib province.
"International rescue teams must come into our region," said Mohammed Shibli, a spokesperson for the group officially known as the Syria Civil Defence.
"People are dying every second; we are in a race against time," he told AFP from neighbouring Turkey.
"We ask the international community to shoulder its responsibilities towards the victims."
Monday's earthquake devastated entire sections of major cities in Turkey and Syria, killing more than 11,200 people, injuring thousands more and leaving many more without shelter in the winter cold.
In Syria alone at least 2,662 people have been killed, according to the government and the rescuers.
Shibli said it was "impossible" for the group to respond to the large-scale calamity alone in the rebel-held northwest, home to more than four million people.
"Even states can't do that," he said, adding that the group's volunteers have not had time to reach all of the disaster-struck places.
- Digging with bare hands -
Britain announced Wednesday that it would release an additional 800,000 pounds ($968,000) to aid the White Helmets, which who also carries the bodies to the burial grounds.
The rescue group said Egypt had sent a technical team and physicians to support rescue operations and tend to victims.
The White Helmets have been internationally praised for their work, with a Netflix documentary called "The White Helmets" winning an Academy Award in 2017, while a second film focused on the group, "Last Men in Aleppo", was a 2018 Oscars nominee.
They have 3,300 volunteers, including 1,600 dedicated to search and rescue operations.
"After 56 hours of continuous work... hundreds of families are still missing or trapped under the rubble," Shibli said.
"People's chances of survival are declining" in the biting cold, he said.
The group needs heavy machinery, spare parts for the ones they already have, and equipment, "but when will we get them", Shibli asked.
AFP correspondents across the war-ravaged country said rescue workers and residents have had to sift through the rubble with their bare hands.
The region's hospitals were also at full capacity, he said.
"Hospitals are paralysed, especially the surgery departments," Shibli said, adding some had closed their morgues.
- 'Catastrophic' situation -
The situation was "catastrophic", said Hussein Bazar, a health official from the rebel-held Idlib region's so-called Salvation government, who also pleaded for help Wednesday.
"We are unable to provide healthcare to those who need it," he told a news conference, adding that "yesterday we couldn't even provide blood bags for patients".
Doctor Mohammed Eisa of the Syrian American Medical Society, which has a network of hospitals in the northwest, said surgeons were on "high alert" after the tragedy.
The region no longer has round-the-clock electricity as it largely relied on the battered Turkish power grid, with hospitals now powered by private generators, he said.
"We have fuel but it will only last two or three days.
"The region was already vulnerable... but after the quake we not only need medical supplies, but also food and shelter," the doctor said.
White Helmets volunteer Fatima Obeid said teams were busy at work despite exhaustion.
"Being able to pull survivors brings them indescribable joy and excitement," she told AFP from Sarmada in Idlib.
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