The Haiti earthquake triggered flashbacks to 2010 for Wisconsin residents who witnessed the devastation firsthand

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MADISON (Waco) – Last Saturday’s massive earthquake in western Haiti brought back painful memories for some Wisconsin residents of another earthquake 11 years ago that was the deadliest in the country.

In July 2010, an earthquake occurred near Port-au-Prince, killing (by some estimates) hundreds of thousands of people and destroying buildings.

“Once you got anywhere near the capital, buildings were crumbling all over,” said Brian Serchio, an ordained pastor from Madison who co-founded Allies of Haiti, an organization that supports education, meal and work programs in that country. .

The main school of Haiti’s allies was on the path of destruction in 2010.

“It didn’t fall – it wasn’t a pie,” said Serchio. “But it cracked and was convicted and can’t be used again after that.”

Haiti’s allies were formed 20 years ago, and their activity surged in 2010 when that earthquake struck.

“Two of our students were in a college class in a wrecked 8-story building,” Serchio said. “They were on the first floor. It was very painful.”

He was on the ground in Haiti two weeks after the earthquake, surveying the damage to buildings and tallying the people he knew and loved and who lost their lives.

Sirchio remembers a friend searching through the wreckage in search of his missing wife.

“They spent two weeks every day until they collapsed pulling stones and rubble trying to find his wife,” Sirchio said. “They rescued 19 other people in the process, but they never found his wife.”

This Saturday morning, Serchio felt a terrifying familiar feeling again when he woke up and watched the news.

“I needed to know exactly where it was and what effect it had,” he said.

This earthquake hit the West further, not affecting the operations of Haiti’s allies – but it still ravages the country in the same way it did in 2010.

“There is a vigil around the clock of people searching through the rubble and now trying to find their loved ones,” Sirchio said.

As of Monday night, 1,400 people had died, thousands more were injured, and a tropical depression swept over the island.

Haiti’s allies have been unable to visit the country for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sirchio knew and lost people in the earthquake 11 years ago, but says what he learned the most from survivors was strength.

“All the people from other countries who come to help them usually end up with the help of the resilient and persistent spirit of the Haitian people,” he said.

Currently, Haiti’s allies do not directly fund any relief work in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, but many other organizations do.

Sirchio says if you want to donate, make sure you give to existing organizations with direct networks in Haiti to get the funds where they are needed most. This, he says, was what he saw was most effective after the 2010 earthquake. Sirchio recommended two organizations he trusts, Beyond Borders and Haiti Partners.

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