HUNT, Texas – After natural disasters destroy homes, survivors often open up about their most prized possessions.
The items people think of first aren’t typically the most expensive. They are, instead, considered the most meaningful.
This is the case for Pamela Harte, whose family has had land along the Guadalupe River in Hunt for more than 100 years.
“All these little pieces of my life and my husband’s life,” Harte said as she turned the pages of a worn scrapbook.
Members of the Harte family said they are grateful for their lives after rising floodwaters devastated their neighborhood on the Fourth of July. The flooding took so much of what they loved.
“I knew there were people who weren’t going to be here anymore,” Harte said. “Just by driving in, you could tell their houses were all gone. And it was really hard.”
Harte said she lost three of the neighbors around her property, which was also destroyed.
Three of her guest homes on the property were swept away, leaving behind slabs. Her main house was pummeled.
On the night of the floods, Harte said she happened to be out of town.
“This is my peace place, and so, how do you bring it back to that?” she said.
Harte has found one way to do that: by focusing on what survived.
“I’m a scrapbooker — I had been all my life,” Harte said.
However, she never could have imagined how she’d be reunited with her special album.
Harte’s friend was watching KSAT and ABC News a few days after the flood and jumped to her feet when she saw a picture of Harte in a page of her scrapbook.
The friend immediately called KSAT, where someone informed her the clip was on ABC News Live, and put her in touch with producers there in New York City.
The joint team was able to track the album down and get it back into Harte’s hands.
“Two miles down the river, and two miles from the Hunt Store, that’s about where it was found,” Harte said, smiling while turning the pages.
There were pages filled with photos, receipts, tickets, birthday cards and priceless memories over decades of her life. She showed KSAT multiple albums with paper towels in between each page.
“These are pages that have actually been pulled out of the mud,” Harte said. “And we’ve been drying them individually.”
Getting the album back is helping Harte through the grieving process.
“Something like this, where I can just sit and dry a page and dry a page, it helps,” she said. “It’s therapeutic. It’s something I can do.”
Harte said she is taking it one day at a time. Each day, she’s drawing a little more strength from the precious memories, hope and never-ending support.
“The gratitude I have,” Harte said. “People showing up, and wanting to tell the story and wanting to help, has been incredible.”
More Hill Country floods coverage on KSAT: