Brooke and Blair Harber: Father reveals heartbreaking final text from daughters killed in Texas floods

A father has revealed the gut-wrenching final text message sent to him by his daughters moments before they were swept away in vicious floodwaters.

Tragically the text was sent just minutes after he was forced to abandoned his attempt to rescue them.

RJ Harber, 45, woke in the middle of the night on July 4 to rapidly rising waters in his family’s holiday home near Hunt, Texas.

Concerned for his two young daughters Brooke, 11, and Blair, 13, who were staying with their grandparents in a separate cabin 30m closer to the river, Mr Harber took a neighbour’s kayak to try and reach them.

But the dangerous conditions meant he had to turn back.

Mr Harber said he reached about halfway before a swell launched him into a post.

“I shined a flashlight out there, and I could see it was white water, and I’ve kayaked enough to know that that was gonna be impossible,” Mr Harber said.

Then he saw an entire cabin had been ripped off its foundation and was stuck against the side of the cabin where his daughters and parents had been staying.

Mr Harber said he was surrounded by debris, and he knew if he went any further it would be a “death sentence”.

He returned to Ms Harber and the couple took refuge with several other families at a home on higher ground across Highway 39.

When he got inside, Mr Harber found a text sent at 3.30am from his youngest daughter Brooke, at about the same time he had tried to reach the girls.

It said “I love you”.

The girls also sent a text to their other grandparents in Michigan with the same message.

Mr and Ms Harber remained inside until the next morning. When they went outside, they realised the extremely loud noises they had heard throughout the night were the sounds of cabins being ripped from their foundations and crashing into each other.

At sunrise, the water level had lowered enough for Mr Harber to return to the site. The cabin where his daughters and parents had been staying was entirely gone.

Brooke and Blair’s bodies were found approximately 20km from the cabin. The bodies of Mr Harber’s parents, Mike and Charlene Harber, are still yet to be found.

When the girls bodies were found, the girls’ aunt Jennifer Harber said in a statement that “their hands were locked together”.

Carlyn Ray, a friend of Mr Harber’s, took to Facebook to call on the community to surround the couple with “the same fierce love and faith they instilled in their daughters”.

“Hearing how he tried desperately to rescue his family—and how he and Annie miraculously survived—shakes me to my core. The grief they now carry is unimaginable,” Ms Ray said.