Two toddler girls died in the Texas Hill Country when flash floods hit. They were holding hands when they died. The whole country is crying over what happened to them. Blair and Brooke Harber, who were only 13 and 11 years old, were swept away as their family was on a short summer trip to the gated area of Casa Bonita near Hunt, Texas. Floodwaters poured through the area around 3:30 a.m. on Friday morning, turning what had been a peaceful vacation into an unimaginable tragedy. Hundreds of people have died in these storms around the state.
Their aunt, Jennifer Harber, posted on GoFundMe that the family was asleep when the flood came. RJ Harber, the girls’ father, didn’t wake up until the rain was so intense that it started breaking through the doors of their cottage. The rain was so loud that it drowned out practically everything else, except for one last message from Brooke, who was 11 years old. She sent her dad and grandparents a text saying, “I love you.” That was the last time anyone would hear from her.
RJ and his wife Annie recognized right away how dangerous it was and busted a window to get away. Their girls were resting in a nearby cabin with their grandparents, Mike and Charlene Harber, because their own cabin was flooded. RJ and Annie ran barefoot through the rising water to a neighbor’s house, where they begged to borrow a kayak since they were so eager to get to them. They tried to paddle to their girls, but the water was too forceful for them to fight. In the end, they and five other neighbors were safe. But Blair and Brooke were still not there.
Twelve hours later, search and rescue teams found the girls’ remains 15 miles downriver. Jennifer Harber told KLOU that the search teams found the sisters’ hands tied together. This act demonstrated how close they were in life and death.
According to the most recent report, Mike and Charlene Harber, the daughters’ grandparents, are still missing. The family still has hope, but time and the situation are not on their side. The Harbers would rather sleep with the girls in a bigger, more pleasant residence nearby. They did this because they loved one other, but it didn’t turn out well.
People at St. Rita’s Catholic School in Dallas, where both Blair and Brooke attended to school, knew and loved them both. Their mom, Annie, is a teacher there. The school community is having a hard time dealing with the loss. Jennifer noted that Blair was “a talented student with a big, kind heart,” while RJ remarked that Brooke was “a light in any room—people were drawn to her.” Right then and there, she made them laugh and have fun. The girls’ families are very pious because they each took their rosary beads on vacation.
The Harber family, like many others, is distraught and trying to make sense of the incomprehensible as the death toll from the floods in Texas grows beyond 80 and more than 40 people are still missing. They are holding on to memories, each other, and the picture of two sisters who were always together in life and death, even if everything around them is falling apart.
People all throughout the world, not just in Texas, have been moved by Blair and Brooke’s story. The tragedy and the simple, deep love it shows—two small girls who held on to each other as everything around them broke apart—are both reasons.
