CARY - When Jean Elade Eloi of Cary saw the first images of the destruction caused by a powerful earthquake in his native Port-au-Prince, Haiti, he didn't believe it.

"The images don't always reflect the current conditions on the ground," Eloi, a self-proclaimed skeptic of the media's coverage of major natural disasters, said Thursday.

But then came a stream of phone calls from friends who had survived the worst earthquake to rumble Haiti in at least 200 years.

They confirmed his worst fears.

"I was overwhelmed, speechless, frantic," Eloi said.

Most of his family still lives in Port-au-Prince. Eloi, a mission director for Hope Community Church, said he has heard from only one relative - a cousin - since the earthquake rocked Haiti on Tuesday night.

Eloi, who works as a mission director for Hope Community Church in Cary, was just in Haiti in December, working to bring clean water to a small village. He had planned to take nearly 40 people to Haiti at the end of this month to set up a three-day clinic for people who lack basic medical care.

"I want to be there yesterday," he said as he arranged to fly back on Friday.

Having been in Haiti less than a month ago with workers from his Hope for Haiti Foundation, which has labored to bring schools, clinics and churches to more remote parts of the country, Eloi knew he wouldn't return to the same place he left.

In Haiti, schools, hospitals and even the palace home of president Rene Pruval crumbled in the massive tremblor. Tens of thousands are believed to be dead or displaced.

The tragedy has sent shockwaves through the Triangle and beyond. Local churches and relief organizations have been scrambling since news of the earthquake broke to find ways to help.

At Connections Church in Cary, for example, church leaders huddled on Thursday with members of a partner ministry, Horizontal Hope, to decide whether they might send a team to Haiti or perhaps contribute money. Scott Sutton of Connections Church said the church avoided setting plans in motion too quickly.

"We're really looking to our Haitian partners to dictate what they need," Sutton said. "We want them to tell us how they want to be helped."

As relief workers scramble to help hundreds of thousands of earthquake victims, Haitians around the Triangle are struggling to communicate with relatives back home. Decades of political and economic problems have driven many Haitians to seek new lives elsewhere, mostly in the United States. About one of every eight Haitians lives abroad, according to the U.S. State Department.

During a time of sporadic phone and Internet connections last week, expatriate Haitians were depending on a loose network of friends and family to keep abreast of news from home, said Eloi. He knows Haitians in places as varied as Montreal, Miami and France. Whenever one receives a bit of news, it is passed along to everyone else.

Before he returned home, Eloi said he was restless and tired.

"Being unable to reach people is the most disheartening thing," he said. "I just hope everyone is OK."