It can often be difficult to be away from home, but when your home has just been pummeled by Hurricane Matthew, it can be even more painful.
Julio Rivera was born in Haiti but moved to Canada when he was 16. He has lived in Edmonton during most of his time in the country.
The majority of his immediate family is in Canada, but he still has cousins and other family members in Haiti.
Hurricane Matthew rampaged through Haiti’s western peninsula on Tuesday with 233 kilometre per hour winds and torrential rain.
The hurricane left almost 900 people dead in Haiti and caused major flooding and loss of livestock.
READ MORE: Hurricane Matthew: death toll continue to climb in Haiti, now almost 900
Rivera has travelled back and forth between Canada and Haiti for the last 10 years, both for business and pleasure.
He said panic settled in earlier this week when he saw the hurricane was on track to hit his home country.
“We know exactly what was going on and how much they need and understand the infrastructure – it wouldn’t be able to handle the devastation,” he said.
Rivera started contacting friends by phone and on Facebook to see if they had made it to safety. But he is still waiting to connect with some family members.
READ MORE: Hurricane Matthew: Canada sending $300K to Haiti for disaster relief
Seeing pictures and video of the devastation has been difficult.
“It’s hard, very hard,” he said.
Rivera and his wife Peggy were in Haiti when a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck. The pair started distributing food and aiding with relief efforts.
The parallels between the disasters and the destruction that has followed, are bringing back old feelings.
“I broke down. It’s too much,” Peggy said.
“Seeing all that, and being in the middle of the earthquake and experiencing that and how we felt then, it just brought everything right back. You feel the pain. I think it’s compounded that it’s happened and we’re not there to help. That really bothers us a lot.”
Wilbert Platel, president of the Haitian Organization of Edmonton, left Haiti in 2004 and hasn’t been back since.
READ MORE: Hurricane Matthew: Why a distrust in aid groups may impact Haiti relief efforts
As the hurricane was moving towards Haiti, he managed to get in touch with his brothers and sisters in Port-Au-Prince. But he was unable to reach his father, who lives in the south in a town called Dumay.
“I could not talk to him. No communication. No signal,” he said.
He has only recently heard that his father is alive.
“My dad is very sad because he lost everything. [His house] is destroyed – gone.”
Both Platel and the Riveras want to go to Haiti in the near future to assist with aid and cleanup efforts.
–with files from The Associated Press.
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