Blair and Brooke Harber clung to each other as they were swept away by ravaging floods in Kerr County early Friday with rescuers discovering the bodies of the 11- and 13-year-old sisters from Dallas with rosaries and hands locked together, according to their aunt.
Their bodies were found about 12 hours and 15 miles from where the wall of water washed them from the house in Hunt where they were staying with their grandparents, aunt Jennifer Harber said.
As heavy rains fell, Brooke sent a last text to her family, "saying I love you at 3:30 a.m.,” Harber said.
“Their bodies were found yesterday afternoon, 15 miles away in Kerrville,” she said. “When they were found, their hands were locked together.”
The family is still waiting to hear about the remaining missing relatives.
“My parents, Mike and Charlene Harber, have not been found as of now,” Jennifer Harber told the Chronicle. “Prayers are needed so we can bring them home.”
Jennifer says the storm woke up her family around 3:30 a.m., and that’s when Blair, and Brooke’s father, R.J., went to check on the girls, whom they had tucked into bed at 11 p.m.
“My parents were downstairs in the guest bedroom and my nieces were upstairs in the loft,” said Jennifer Harber. “My mom, dad and nieces stayed at that house because the house they owned was a one-bedroom, and the neighbors were kind enough to let them stay there since they were out of town.”
It was at that moment that she said R.J. witnessed the waters beginning to rise around the home in the gated community of Casa Bonita in Hunt.“They said you couldn’t hear it at all, because the rain was so loud,” she said. “If they had not woken up to check on the girls, they would have drowned too. It’s a miracle they got out.”
To escape the flooding home, they had to break a window. The family recalled the water “rising one foot per minute.”
“The waters were too high to get to our family, so he (R.J.) went to other neighbors to borrow a kayak,” Jennifer Harber said. “He woke two neighbors up for help and saved their lives and borrowed a kayak. But, the water had risen too high to reach the neighbor's house that my parents and nieces and their two dogs were at.”
Due to the rough waters, R.J. couldn’t navigate the river with the kayak. So, he retreated and joined the other survivors, many wearing nightgowns. Electrical transformers exploded, lighting up the pitch-black sky, the aunt recalled.
“By the time they got out, the water was up to Annie’s chin,” Jennifer Harber said, referring to R.J.'s wife. “They said they were surprised they didn’t have hypothermia; it was freezing waters. R.J., Annie and the other five (people) they woke somehow made it to a house on the other side of the flooded highway, and strangers let all seven in.”
Jennifer said that while one dog managed to escape, the other pet did not.
“Somehow their lab made it out of the window, and I don’t know how, but found them across the flooded highway up the hill at that house,” she said.
R.J. and Annie told Harber that shortly after they crossed the highway, they witnessed houses and cars in the gated community getting swept away and trees uprooted.
“I believe only four or six are left standing out of 20 houses in that community,” she said.
St. Rita Catholic Community School, of Dallas, will host a joint funeral for Brooke and Blair Harber. Jennifer, who works for Southwest Airlines, said the company has agreed to fly her nieces home.
The family has not released any details on a date yet as they continue looking for family members.
