Texas floods victims aged 11 and 13 sent family heartbreaking three word text before dying with 'hands locked together': Live updates
Blair, 13, and Brooke Harber, 11, were found dead with their 'hands locked together' after the Guadalupe River rose to record heights over the weekend, completely flooding the camping area where they were staying with their family.
At least 82 people were killed in the devastation along the Guadalupe River, outside of San Antonio, and 41 remain missing. Ten girls and a counselor are still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river.
Survivors have described the floods as a 'pitch black wall of death' and said they received no emergency warnings.
Officials have come under scrutiny as to why residents and youth summer camps along the river were not alerted sooner about the severe weather or told to evacuate.
The National Weather Service has extended a flash flood watch for the Texas Hill Country, where an additional one to three inches of rain is expected to fall today, until 7pm local time (6pm EST).
The Texas Hill Country in the central part of the state is naturally prone to flash flooding. Friday's flash floods started with a particularly bad storm that dropped most of its 12 inches of rain in the dark, early morning hours.
12:04
Sisters aged 11 and 13 send heartbreaking three word text to loved ones as they drowned in flood
Two young sisters killed in the deadly Hill Country floods sent their parents a heartbreaking final text before they drowned to death.
Blair, 13, and Brooke Harber, 11, were staying in a rented cabin along the Guadalupe River with their grandparents Mike and Charlene Harber over the July 4th holiday.
Their father RJ and mother Annie were staying in a separate cabin, located in the Casa Bonita cabin community near Hunt, nearby, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The married couple were woken up by the sound of rushing water early Friday morning as their cabin began to flood. RJ and Annie managed to escape the building by jumping out of a window as the water reached neck-level.
RJ started to kayak towards the cabin where his daughters and parents were staying, but swell knocked him into a post about halfway through his journey.
He shined a flashlight towards the cabin and saw an entire building had detached from the foundation and struck against the cabin where his family was.
'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,' he told WSJ.
'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.'
He kayaked back towards Annie and the pair headed to higher ground with other families who managed to flee the floods.
When they arrived at a safe spot, the couple checked their phones and saw they each received a text from their daughters that read 'I love you', timestamped at 3.30am.
The girls also sent a similar message to their grandfather in Michigan.
Their bodies were found the next day, about dozen miles from the cabin with their 'hands locked together'. Mike and Charlene remain missing.
Catastrophic Texas floods kill 82 people, including 28 children
Flash flooding in central Texas has killed at least 82 people, including 28 children, officials have confirmed.
At least 41 people are confirmed to be unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing, Gov. Greg Abbott said Sunday.
In hardest-hit Kerr County, home to youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said.
Fatalities in nearby counties brought the total number of deaths to 82 as of Monday morning.
Ten girls and a counselor were still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river.
Beyond the Camp Mystic campers unaccounted for, the number of missing from other nearby campgrounds and across the region had not been released.
Pictured: A view inside of a cabin at Camp Mystic, the site of where at least 10 girls went missing after flash flooding in Hunt, Texas, on July 5, 2025
Pictured: Search and recovery workers dig through debris looking for any survivors or remains of people swept up in the flash flooding at Camp Mystic on July 6, 2025 in Hunt, Texas
11:29
What caused the Guadalupe River floods?
Friday's flash floods started with a particularly bad storm that dropped most of its 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain in the dark early morning hours.
After a flood watch notice midday Thursday, the National Weather Service office issued an urgent warning around 4am that raised the potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life.
By at least 5.20am, some residents in the Kerrville city area say water levels were getting alarmingly high. The massive rain flowing down hills sent rushing water into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet in just 45 minutes.
The Texas Hill Country in the central part of the state is naturally prone to flash flooding due to the dry dirt-packed areas where the soil lets rain skid along the surface of the landscape instead of soaking it up.
Pictured: Construction equipment is seen caught in the Guadalupe River in the aftermath of deadly flooding in Kerrville, Texas on July 6, 2025
Pictured: The sun sets over the Guadalupe River on July 6, 2025 in Kerrville, Texas. Heavy rainfall caused severe flooding along the Guadalupe River in central Texas, leaving more than 80 people reported dead
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Here's why record-high flash flood warnings were issued in U.S. this year
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The Independent
a day ago
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Camp leader may not have seen urgent alert before deadly Texas flood, family says
Uncertainty surrounds whether the leader of Camp Mystic received a critical National Weather Service warning before deadly floods struck Texas, a spokesman for the camp's operators has revealed. The alert had triggered an emergency warning to phones in the area. Richard "Dick" Eastland, the owner of the camp, had been monitoring weather conditions, taking action after more than two inches of rain fell along the Guadalupe River on July 4, according to Jeff Carr, a spokesman for the family and the camp. Eastland reportedly possessed a "home weather station" and was actively tracking the downpour. However, Carr has now clarified that the timeline regarding Eastland's awareness of a 1a.m. emergency alert is less clear than initially suggested. While he had previously indicated Eastland received flash flood alerts, Carr told The Associated Press that no one in the family or camp staff can now definitively say whether the camp owner saw the urgent warning, despite initial assumptions. 'It was assumed that just because he had a cellphone on and shortly after that alert, he was calling his family on the walkie-talkies saying, 'Hey, we got two inches in the last hour. We need to get the canoes up. We got things to do,' ' Carr said. The new account by the family comes as Camp Mystic staff has come under scrutiny of their actions, what preventive measures were taken and the camp's emergency plan leading up to a during the catastrophic flood that has killed at least 132 people. The flash-flood warning that the National Weather Service issued at 1:14 a.m. on July 4 for Kerr County triggered an emergency alerts to broadcast outlets, weather radios and mobile phones. It warned of 'a dangerous and life-threatening situation.' The weather service extended the warning at 3:35 a.m. and escalated it to flash-flood emergency at 4:03 a.m. Eastland died while trying to rescue girls and was found in his Tahoe that was swept away by the floodwaters, Carr said. Even without a storm, the cellphone coverage at Camp Mystic is spotty at best, so campers and staff turn on their Wi-Fi, Carr said. He called ridiculous criticism that Eastland waited too long before beginning to evacuate the campers, which he said appears to have begun sometime between 2 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. 'Communication was a huge deficiency,' Carr said. "This community was hamstrung, nobody could communicate. The first responder, the first rescue personnel that showed up was a game warden.' According to Carr, Eastland and others started evacuating girls from cabins nearest the overflowing river and moved them to the camp's two-story recreation hall. Of the 10 cabins closest to the river, the recreation hall is the furthest at 865 feet (264 meters) with the closest cabin about 315 feet (96 meters), according to an Associated Press analysis of aerial imagery. To reach Senior Hill, which was on higher ground , they would have had to cross an overflowing creek, Carr said. At times the young campers were climbing hills in bare feet, he said. Some of the camp's buildings — which flooded — were in what the Federal Emergency Management Agency considered a 100-year flood plain. But in response to an appeal, FEMA in 2013 amended the county's flood map to remove 15 of the camp's buildings from the hazard area. Carr said there were 'legitimate' reasons for filing appeals and suggested that the maps may not always be accurate. Just before daybreak on the Fourth of July, destructive, fast-moving waters rose 26 feet (8 meters) on the Guadalupe River, washing away homes and vehicles. Crews in helicopters, boats and drones have been searching for victims. Officials say 97 people in the Kerrville area may still be missing.
The Independent
2 days ago
- The Independent
Camp Mystic leader may not have seen urgent alert before Texas flood, family spokesman says
The leader of Camp Mystic had been tracking the weather before the deadly Texas floods, but it is now unclear whether he saw an urgent warning from the National Weather Service that had triggered an emergency alert to phones in the area, a spokesman for camp's operators said Wednesday. Richard 'Dick' Eastland, the owner of Camp Mystic, began taking action after more than 2 inches of rain had fallen in the area along the Guadalupe River, said Jeff Carr, a spokesman for the family and the camp. He said Eastland had a 'home weather station' and was monitoring the rain on July 4. But after initially portraying to the media this week that Eastland got the weather alerts about a flash flood, Carr told The Associated Press that critical moment in the timeline of the tragedy isn't as clear as the family and staff first thought. No one in the family or camp staff, Carr said, could now say whether Eastland got the alert at 1:14 a.m. 'It was assumed that just because he had a cellphone on and shortly after that alert, he was calling his family on the walkie-talkies saying, 'Hey, we got two inches in the last hour. We need to get the canoes up. We got things to do,' ' Carr said. The new account by the family comes as Camp Mystic staff has come under scrutiny of their actions, what preventive measures were taken and the camp's emergency plan leading up to a during the catastrophic flood that has killed at least 132 people. The flash-flood warning that the National Weather Service issued at 1:14 a.m. on July 4 for Kerr County triggered an emergency alerts to broadcast outlets, weather radios and mobile phones. It warned of 'a dangerous and life-threatening situation.' The weather service extended the warning at 3:35 a.m. and escalated it to flash-flood emergency at 4:03 a.m. Eastland died while trying to rescue girls and was found in his Tahoe that was swept away by the floodwaters, Carr said. Even without a storm, the cellphone coverage at Camp Mystic is spotty at best, so campers and staff turn on their Wi-Fi, Carr said. He called ridiculous criticism that Eastland waited too long before beginning to evacuate the campers, which he said appears to have begun sometime between 2 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. 'Communication was a huge deficiency,' Carr said. "This community was hamstrung, nobody could communicate. The first responder, the first rescue personnel that showed up was a game warden.' According to Carr, Eastland and others started evacuating girls from cabins nearest the overflowing river and moved them to the camp's two-story recreation hall. Of the 10 cabins closest to the river, the recreation hall is the furthest at 865 feet (264 meters) with the closest cabin about 315 feet (96 meters), according to an Associated Press analysis of aerial imagery. To reach Senior Hill, which was on higher ground , they would have had to cross an overflowing creek, Carr said. At times the young campers were climbing hills in bare feet, he said. Some of the camp's buildings — which flooded — were in what the Federal Emergency Management Agency considered a 100-year flood plain. But in response to an appeal, FEMA in 2013 amended the county's flood map to remove 15 of the camp's buildings from the hazard area. Carr said there were 'legitimate' reasons for filing appeals and suggested that the maps may not always be accurate. Just before daybreak on the Fourth of July, destructive, fast-moving waters rose 26 feet (8 meters) on the Guadalupe River, washing away homes and vehicles. Crews in helicopters, boats and drones have been searching for victims. Officials say 97 people in the Kerrville area may still be missing. ___
