PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI (WKBW) -- Erin Lancer of West Seneca recalls the very moment the earthquake hit in Haiti
"All of the sudden there was rumbling. I didn't know what it was for a few seconds but the wall between the guest house and the neighbors house was just doing this ground doing that, i knew almost immediately it was an earthquake", Lancer told Eyewitness News.
Lancer flew to Haiti last Monday, one day before the earthquake hit, to visit the child she and her husband Michael are in the process of adopting from an orphanage. The three-year old childs name is Geoffrey.
But now that adoption is up in the air. The couple was just a few weeks away from getting a passport and visa to bring Geoffrey to his new home when the earthquake hit. The building where the paperwork was being processed was destroyed Luckily, Lancer thinks the adoption agent salvaged her papers.
"She does have copies of everything so we're hoping that that will help us", said Lancer.
Meantime, Lancer's husband Michael is asking the U-S State Department to help cut through the "red tape" so they can bring their adoptive son home.
"We're not looking to the Haitian government to complete the process were looking to the U.S. State Department to step up and to help us to finalize to get our son and the other adoptive children to the United States where they will be safe, they'll be with their forever families, and hopefully the immigration issues will be cleaned up in the future if there are any", said Michael Lancer.
As the couple wait to hear from the State Department they're also calling on Western New Yorkers to do what they can to help to relief effort.
"We know that there are so many people trapped and hurting. It's going to get worse. We don't want people to forget about Haiti. In the days as the news cycle changes we want people to remember haiti and to help", said Erin Lancer.
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