His brother, Harold, showed me text messages, the only way he's been able to get information since Tuesday's catastrophic earthquake.
"I'm hoping for a miracle, for good news out of nowhere. I'm just holding onto some hope, but what hope," Harold Clerge said.
It's easy to understand his frustration, his other brother, Shiler, delivered more devastating news about their uncle Adrian.
"He is gone," Clerge said.
On a single tree-lined street in Canarsie, they've cried a million tears.
"Even if they could hear them under the rubble to pull them out, no one is looking for them," Sherley Lamonthe, another relative, said.
Lamonthe was desperately trying to find her father DuCoste.
The family owns a dry cleaning business in Port-au-Prince, three blocks from the presidential palace.
"He's a very strong, 70 year old guy who jogs every morning. I told my brother, if he's stuck under the rubble, he's fighting to get out," she said.
Shortly after this report was first broadcast on Eyewitness News, her father called. He is safe.
"If I can get his picture in TV, it makes me feel like I am doing something," Gabrielle Shea said.
She is trying to locate her father, Gabriel. He was in the capital on Saturday and had planned to travel to a town 30 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince.
"I just need to hear his voice so I know he's okay," Shea said.
A sentiment shared by many here, rattled by despair, yet united in hope.
"Just knowing you are not going through this alone, helps out 100 times over," Shea said.
