CHENEY-- Haitian residents across the U.S. have been trying to reach family members back home to see if they survived.
One Eastern Washington exchange student can’t imagine what’s left of her home.
Sarah Lantimo spoke to her mom an hour before the earthquake hit so she was in shock when a friend told her what happened.
The next few hours were simply filled with fear and frantic phone calls. Sarah Lantimo says the only thing she could do Tuesday night was worry about her family back home near Port-Au-Prince.
Video and pictures out of Haiti’s capital city show widespread destruction from a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, the first to hit the country in more than 200 years.
The hospital, jail, and numerous other downtown buildings collapsed.
Lantimo says it was especially difficult to see the massive presidential palace, a well known landmark, now folded on top of itself. Lantimo’s mother’s office was nearby.
After a night of unanswered phone calls, her mother finally got through Wednesday morning to tell Sarah she was alright. Lantimo says that felt great to hear but then her cousins called to say the situation is deadly and dangerous still.
Now Lantimo is trying to prepare herself for a new reality when she goes home for Spring Break. She says she grew up there most of her life and thinks it will be a sad experience to go home.
Lantimo may have to go home sooner than she thought, Wednesday afternoon she heard her family’s home has basically been destroyed, but everyone who was inside is safe.
