New Braunfels kindergartener died with her parents after floodwaters flattened Kerrville campground

Harley Moeller had just finished kindergarten when she was killed by the surge of July 4 floodwaters that tore through the Kerrville campground where her family planned to celebrate Independence Day.

“Our hearts are broken,” officials at Klein Road Elementary School posted on Facebook. Harley’s school was one of many groups sharing updates on the 6-year-old girl and her parents, Megan and Jake Moeller, who died together in the floods.

A photo of Harley brandishing her kindergarten graduation certificate flanked by her two smiling parents made the rounds online.

Avery’s Kitchen, a restaurant in nearby New Braunfels where Megan waited tables, also shared ongoing news about the family. The outfit’s first post, a missing persons alert posted in the early afternoon of July 4, joined a flurry of frantic online messages posted by the relatives and friends of over a hundred missing people who had gone to sleep the day before on the banks of the Guadalupe River.

In the early hours of July 4, notices from the National Weather Service alerted locals to a “flood watch” and warned that the Guadalupe River faced “a very dangerous and life-threatening flood event.” But the Moellers, like many others, did not make it out in time, and were swept away by the river as it rose rapidly in the Kerrville area to a crest of over 30 feet.

The family of three was sleeping at the HTR TX Hill Country RV Park and Campground in Kerrville when the floodwaters hit. They had traveled to the site on the shore of the Guadalupe River with Megan’s parents, DeeAnn and Gary Knetsch.

On July 7, Avery’s Kitchen posted an update: their “beloved server and friend” Megan and her husband Jake were confirmed dead. At the time, Harley was still missing.

“We are deeply grieving the loss of someone who brought warmth, kindness, and laughter into our lives and the lives of everyone she served,” restaurant staff said.

In his wedding vows to Megan, Jake said she reminded him of James 1:17, a bible verse that reads “every good and perfect gift comes from above.”

“Jake, Megan, and Harley were truly gifts from God,” Jake’s family said in a statement. “We take comfort in knowing they have been embraced by those who went before them.”

In a GoFundMe drive now closed to donations, Megan’s sister wrote that the early morning flood had changed her family’s life forever.

“The grief is beyond words, and we are still trying to comprehend how to move forward without them,” she wrote, later following up with a message of gratitude for the tens of thousands of dollars that had quickly surpassed the family’s donation goals. A memorial fund set up for the Moeller family through a federal credit union is still accepting support, according to a separate Facebook post, as is an in-person donation drive at Avery’s Kitchen.

The family was honored alongside Megan’s parents and other local flood victims at a candlelight vigil in New Braunfels’ downtown Main Plaza on Thursday evening.

Additional reporting contributed by Julian Gill and Megan Menchaca.