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TAYLORSVILLE -- As the catastrophe unfolds in Haiti, it's been agonizing for many people in the United States as they wait for word from loved ones.
The lack of information is particularly ironic in the case of man living in Taylorsville. He was once one of Haiti's top security officials, and his brother still is.
Hernandez Honore fled Haiti 10 years ago because its brutal internal politics made it too dangerous for him to stay. He's now a cab driver, but once he was the mayor's bodyguard and chief of security for Port-au-Prince.
Related:
Haiti quake: thousands feared dead, many trapped
Dazed survivors wandered past dead bodies in rubble-strewn streets Wednesday, crying for loved ones, and rescuers desperately searched collapsed buildings as fear rose that the death toll from Haiti's devastating earthquake could reach into the tens of thousands.Hernandez's brother is still chief of police in that capitol city. But the city in ruins now, and Hernandez has been unable to reach him since the big quake struck.
"I don't have any information from my family, from my friends, from nobody now," Hernandez says.
He and his wife, Alda, have been trying to get in touch with e-mail and repeated phone calls. Alda's mother is out of touch somewhere in the devastation of Port-au-Prince. Hernandez' mother lives in a small village, which he believes has been flattened.
Between them they have 11 brothers and sisters unaccounted for.
"My people is suffering so much there," Hernandez says. "I cannot, I cannot explain it."
Although it was political trouble that brought Hernandez to this country, he hopes people will set politics aside with the catastrophe.
"The people, the Haitian people, suffer for a long, long time -- suffering from the political problems in Haiti. But now people should put the politics on the other side now, try to help the people in Haiti now. I think Haitian people need so much help now," Hernandez says.
He points out that Haiti is a close neighbor of America -- just an hour and a half from Miami on an airplane -- and there's probably never been a needier neighbor.
E-mail: jhollenhorst@ksl.com
