The Texas father of two young girls who tragically died holding hands during devastating floods has shared the final message they sent before the rising waters took their lives.
R.J. and Annie Harber were spending the Fourth of July at their one-bedroom cabin in Casa Bonita, near Hunt, Texas, a place they’d owned since 2020. Their daughters had opted to stay nearby with their grandparents, Mike and Charlene Harber, in a cabin closer to the lake.
Around 3:30AM on the holiday, R.J. awoke to pounding rain, thunder, and lightning. He realized water was rushing into their cabin, and when the door wouldn’t budge, he and Annie climbed out a window with floodwaters already up to her neck. They fled to higher ground and alerted nearby families to evacuate as well.
Determined to reach his daughters and parents, R.J. borrowed a kayak, a life vest, and a flashlight, but quickly realized the current was too strong. A sudden swell threw him into a post.
“I shined the flashlight and saw it was white water. I’ve kayaked enough to know, it was impossible,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “There were cars and trees floating past me. One more stroke would’ve been a death sentence.”
He watched in horror as a cabin, torn from its foundation, slammed into the side of the one where his daughters and parents were staying.
Knowing he couldn’t make it, R.J. made the agonizing decision to return to his wife and the others. They found refuge at a nearby home on higher ground, where a family let them in around 3:45AM, per KHOU.
Only then did R.J. check his phone, and saw a text from Brooke sent at 3:30AM: “I love you.” Annie received similar messages from both daughters, and their other grandfather in Michigan received one that read “Love you,” accompanied by a photo of the girls with him.
They waited out the night in the dark, hearing loud crashes they would later learn were cabins being ripped away by the floodwaters. At sunrise, R.J. returned to find their cabin, and many others, completely destroyed.
The girls’ bodies were discovered about 12 miles downstream. Their grandparents, Mike and Charlene, remain missing.
Kerr County has become the epicenter of catastrophic flooding that swept through Texas, killing over 100 people and prompting more than 400 emergency rescues.
A GoFundMe created to help with funeral costs for Blair and Brooke has raised over $330,000 of it $275,000 goal. Their aunt, Jennifer Harber, wrote that the girls were devout in their faith, loved their religion classes, and had their rosaries with them that night.
“Blair and I talked about God and heaven just two weeks ago,” she shared.
R.J. reflected on the place his family had once cherished. “We used to kayak, fish, and play there,” he said. “Unfortunately, all those great memories are now a bad memory.”