Blair and Brooke Harber were swept away during the Texas floods, 12 hours later their bodies were found with ‘their hands locked together’ 15 miles away as their grandparents remain missing
Blair and Brooke Harber, pictured left to right, were found with their hands ‘locked together’ 12 hours after their cabin was struck by flash floods (Image: Handout)
Two sisters who were killed in the devastating Texas floods were found with “their hands locked together” after sending a tragic final text, their heartbroken family has revealed.
Blair and Brooke Harber, ages 13 and 11, had been staying with their grandparents, who remain missing, in the gated community of Casa Bonita, Hunt, when they were swept away by flood water from the Guadalupe River on Friday. Their parents, who had been staying at a nearby cabin, managed to escape to safety.
The girls’ parents, RJ and Annie Harber, woke up at around 3.30am to the sound of the rain so loud they didn’t initially hear the water already pouring into their cabin. “If they had not woken up to check on the girls they would have drowned too. It’s a miracle they got out they had to break a window and get out immediately. At that point the water was rising one foot per minute,” RJ’s sister Jennifer wrote on a GoFundMe page.
The girls’ parents were rescued from a nearby cabin(Image: Facebook)
Around the same time, Brooke texted her dad and maternal grandparents “I love you”, according to Jennifer. After shattering a window to escape their cabin, RJ made a final, desperate bid to save his daughters, borrowing a neighbors kayak as he frantically tried to reach them.
But the waters were already too high and too ferocious for him to make it. The parents were eventually rescued among five surviving neighbors, Jennifer said.
Blair, Brooke and their grandparents had been staying in a separate cabin because some neighbors who were out of town had offered for the family to use it as it was more spacious than the parents’ one-bedroom home. The girls’ cabin was located five houses down from their parents and closer to the river.
The girls had been staying in a cabin with their grandparents, who are still missing(Image: GoFundMe)
The sisters were found 12 hours later, 15 miles away. “When they were found their hands were locked together,” Jennifer wrote. St. Rita Catholic Community, the school the girls attended, penned a heartbreaking tribute to the sisters.
“On the night they died, they went to the loft of their cabin with their rosaries,” the school said. “When Blair and Brooke were found the next day, fifteen miles downriver, they were together. Even in their last moments, they held tightly to each other, a powerful symbol of their lasting bond and their trust in God.”
The girls’ dad attempted to reach them in a kayak(Image: GoFundMe)
The girls’ grandparents, Mike and Charlene Harber, are still unaccounted for. At least 82 people have been killed in the flash floods as 10 girls from a summer camp ripped apart by the fast-moving water remain missing.
Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott said there were 41 people confirmed to be unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing. In Kerr County, home to Camp Mystic and other youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said.
He pledged to keep searching until “everybody is found” from Friday’s flash floods. Ten other deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to local officials.
