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“I Love You, Dad”: Texas Father’s Final Kayak Journey Ends in Tragedy as He Tries to Reach His Daughters During Deadly Floods
The search for survivors continues two days after a flash flood killed dozens of people across central Texas, but some of the stories of the families caught in the July Fourth weekend storms are starting to be told.
The Harber family was spending the holiday at a cabin they owned in the Casa Bonita cabin community near Hunt, Texas. Around 3:30 a.m. on Friday, July 4, RJ Harber was awakened by pounding rain, thunder and lightning. Hours earlier, he had received flash-flood warnings for other areas but not where he was staying.
RJ, a 45-year-old father and Dallas lawyer who had been vacationing and going to summer camp in the area his whole life, thought the river might rise a little. He wanted to check on his two young daughters: 11-year-old Brooke and 13-year-old Blair.
The girls were staying in a borrowed cabin closer to the river with their grandparents, Mike and Charlene Harber. RJ said he thought he would also clear away a kayak and some fishing gear he was keeping by the river.
He put his foot down on the floor of his cabin—and felt about 4 inches of water. RJ turned to his wife, who was lying in bed beside him, also awake. He told her, “Annie, the cabin’s flooding.”
RJ could see water rushing in through the front door. He tried to open the door, but couldn’t. He looked out the window and saw the water level was about two feet below the window.
“We need to get out right now,” RJ told Annie. They grabbed a few items—their cellphones and a bag they hadn’t unpacked. By the time they jumped out the window about two minutes later, the water had reached up to Annie’s neck.
The Harbers hurried to another cabin nearby, on slightly higher ground. They knocked on the door and woke the family. By the time the family came to the door, the water was almost at their door. They went to another cabin and woke a third family as well.
RJ borrowed a kayak, life vest and flashlight. He started to kayak to the cabin where the couple’s daughters and RJ’s parents were staying. It was about 100 feet below and he reached about halfway when, RJ said, a swell knocked 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,“ RJ said.
He could see an entire cabin had been detached from its foundation and was stuck against the side of the cabin where his daughters and parents were staying. “There were cars floating at me and trees floating at me. I knew if I took even one stroke further, it was gonna be a death sentence.”
RJ turned around to get his wife and the remaining families. They went to a home nearby on higher ground across Highway 39, where a family let them in around 3:45 a.m.
That was when he checked his cellphone and saw a text sent at 3:30 a.m. from his daughter Brooke. Receiving the text alone was a miracle in the area, where he usually couldn’t get cell service. It said, “I love you.”
Annie, 43, who worked at St. Rita Catholic School, which both girls attended, received texts from both Brooke and Blair timestamped at 3:30 a.m. that said, “I love you.”
Their other grandfather in Michigan received a text with “Love you” and a photo of the girls with him.
The Harbers and other families waited without power all night, hearing horrible sounds. The next morning they realized they had been hearing the cabins being ripped off their foundations and crashing apart.
Mike and Charlene Harber, who are unaccounted for, in front of the cabin they owned this year.
At sunrise the water had finally receded enough for RJ to go back to the site. Only a half-dozen of the community’s 20-some cabins were still standing. The others had been ripped from their foundations, leaving only their tile floors. The cabin where Blair, Brooke and their grandparents had been staying was completely washed away.
Blair and Brooke’s bodies were found and identified about a dozen miles from the cabin. Their grandparents remain unaccounted for as of Sunday afternoon.
The Harbers have owned the cabin in Casa Bonita since 2020. The family often went there to kayak, fish and let their kids play. “Unfortunately,” RJ said, “all those great memories are now a bad memory.”
