Hans Mardy has dialed the numbers hundreds of times, praying someone — his father, his sister, one of four brothers — will pick up the phone.
He waits, passport in pocket, ready to board the next flight to earthquake-ravaged Haiti. He writes frantic text messages. "Are you alive? What happened? Give me a sign of life."
No one answers.
Across the U.S., which has about 800,000 residents of Haitian descent, Haitian-Americans desperately tried to get word Wednesday from relatives and friends in the devastated nation. Most, like Mardy, heard nothing back.
Some poured their energy into relief efforts, joining Americans with no connection to Haiti who collected bottled water, canned goods, medical supplies and money. Others bowed their heads in prayer or sat transfixed by their televisions.
In Evanston, Ill., Bernard Geto couldn't hold back tears as he watched CNN at Sweet Nick's Caribbean restaurant, jumping each time his cell phone rang. In South Bend, Ind., Slandah Dieujuste learned an aunt lost her house but escaped. She could not get information about anyone else.
And as community organizers in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood tried to develop response plans, 29-year-old Katia Saint Fleur scoured Facebook, tears welling in her eyes.
"Please if you can, contact us any way, do so," she wrote on a cousin's page. "We are going crazy trying to reach you guys."
‘I call. I call. I call’
Danglass Gregoire headed to Florida for a business trip Tuesday, leaving his wife and young daughter behind in Haiti, close to the epicenter of the 7.0 earthquake. When he arrived at Miami International Airport, the 41-year-old said he wasn't sure if they were alive.
"I call. I call. I call. No one answers," he said.
The State Department said people seeking information about family members in Haiti should call 888-407-4747 toll-free. The government advises that some callers may receive a recording because of the heavy volume of inquiries.
At the Haitian Consulate in Manhattan, diplomats struggling to locate their own families sobbed as they tried to help countless callers.
"It is indescribable," said counsel general Felix Augustine.
People did what they could to mobilize aid to Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. The U.S. dispatched ships, helicopters, planes and a 2,000-member Marine unit. Cabdrivers transported relief items to collection points, search-and-rescue teams headed to the nation to comb through the rubble, and companies prepared to send heavy equipment.
New York efforts
In New York, which has a large Haitian-American population, Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged assistance and suggested residents donate money to established organizations rather than try to send supplies like food and water to a place that does not have the infrastructure to distribute them.
"We saw the world come to our aid back on 9/11," he said, and now New York wants to "make sure that the world comes to the aid of the Haitian people."
Fernando Mateo, head of the city's taxi driver federation, said his 60,000 members and the Bodegueros Association that represents 14,000 grocery owners were launching Operation Rescue Haiti on Wednesday. They are seeking the help of a major transportation company to deliver the goods.
"We are going to mobilize a few industries to come together and bring supplies, food, medicine, clothing, water — stuff that's needed immediately," Mateo said.
In the Chicago suburb of Evanston, about 25 members of the Haitian Congress to Fortify Haiti gathered to pray and make plans to help.
"It's a little somber, we're trying to figure out what to do. We're trying to get facts, come together, hold each other up and go beyond our own limitations and try to build collective support," Lionel Jean-Baptiste, chairman of the organization and alderman of Evanston's second ward, told the Chicago Tribune.
‘No life anymore’
For many still waiting for word, the uncertainty made it difficult to focus on anything else.
"You have no life anymore," said Anel Calixte, a cab driver sitting with his friend Geto at Sweet Nick's. "You don't know what to feel anymore because your whole family there, your whole family."
Some tried to hold out hope, blaming the lack of contact from relatives on Haiti's poor communication network, but the uncertainty was crushing. Edeline Clermont of Miami got word that her 12-year-old nephew was dead. The boy's parents, brother and sister are unaccounted for. And all told, she has more than 20 relatives in Haiti she has been desperately trying to reach.
"I didn't sleep at all. I just lay there, waiting for answers," she said with tears in her eyes. "I'm afraid that everybody is gone."