LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Haitian families in Louisville feel the aftershocks of the monster 7.2 magnitude earthquake that rocked the country last week as they worry for loved ones living in distress.
As a refugee resettlement community, hundreds of Haitian people in Louisville still have relatives in the island nation.
Louisville resident Gerline Maurice is one of those people and she was in Haiti visiting family last Saturday when the ground started shaking violently.
“When we ran out and we found a lot of people bleeding, yelling,” Maurice said in a phone interview with WDRB News while still in Haiti. “They said that children or family members are under the rubble and they have no way to get them out.”
The 40-year-old Amazon worker says in the midst of the chaos, running during the quake, she fell and cut her head, but her injury was not nearly as bad as the desperation around her.
“Portable water, clean water, electricity, they have nothing right now,” Maurice explained. “They are in need of everything you can think of.”
The Haitian government estimates 1.2 million people in Haiti are impacted by the earthquake. Gripping pictures show churches, hospitals, homes and schools collapsed under its force and some people sifting through the rubble for survivors.
Louisville resident Guerda Tisoit didn’t just feel the impact of the quake from the pictures and videos on the news. She said she was on the phone with her husband, Fequiere Pierre, at the time of the disaster.
Geurda Tisoit talks with her husband, Fequiere Peirre, who lives in Haiti.
“I kept yelling 'baby, what happened, what happened?' and he couldn't answer me because he was yelling for people to come outside,'” Tisoit said. "I was scared, I thought he was victim too, but he’s okay.”
Tisoit is a refugee who has resettled in Louisville while Pierre, who has not completed the process, remains in Haiti. Experts say it’s not uncommon for refugee families to be separated for years during the resettlement process.
“It's sad to see all those people dying and needing help right now,” Pierre said in a video chat with WDRB News.
Fequiera Pierre
The death toll tops 2,100 and 6,000 others are injured, according to reports. Tropical depression Grace hitting days after the quake only made a bad situation worse as it turned roads into rivers, further delaying medical care.
"I feel like history is repeating itself,” Horeb Haitian Seventh Day Adventist Church Pastor Celeve Izean said. “My first reaction was 'oh my God, it’s happened again.'"
Izean said he helped get resources from his Louisville congregation to Haiti after the last giant earthquake 2010. This time he’s putting together funding and planning in conjunction with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency International (ADRA) for a mission trip to help with the long-term rebuild.
This week many other local organization are partnering in a humanitarian effort to lift up Haiti. Supplies overseas (SOS) is providing more than $60,000 dollars of medical supplies donated by local hospitals, Love Hungry is sending thousands of meals and Water-Step is giving safe water equipment with hopes of giving clean water to more than 200-thousand people per day, thanks to a donations by the Kentucky Colonels and Louisville Water.
Pastor Izean says the help for Haiti is about restoring more than building, it’s also about restoring faith to a country in pain.
“There are some many families, hurting and crying and I would tell them there is hope," he said.
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