Local family stranded in Haiti for almost 6 weeks because of coronavirus

Half of a Fayette County family is back home now after unexpectedly getting stuck in Haiti for almost six weeks.

“It was a little sad not being able to get home because I have four kids and five grandkids at home that I couldn’t get to," Linda Mershcat said.

Mershcat has only been back home a week after being left stranded in Haiti.

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She was supposed to fly out March 20, but her flight back to the United States got canceled, so she spent the next 42 days on the island.

“Things were starting to get crazy in Florida, so we didn’t want to sit there and bring the virus home with us. Our flights got canceled anyhow. It wouldn’t have made a difference. We were there for six weeks,” Mershcat said.

The family built a shipping container to live in while completing a mission trip inside a fortress of a compound. They spent their time developing a clean drinking water system for the people of Haiti.

“We dug water lines, we put water out for the public where they have no cleaning drinking water. They had to walk multiple miles a day to have water,” Mershcat said.

She says the impact of the coronavirus there was minimal, but the prejudice of where the virus came from was apparent.

“They would say, 'Oh, white people, American people, now we have to be careful of the virus' because they just assumed because we were white, we brought the virus in with us,” Mershcat said.

Linda said they had to reach out to the U.S. Embassy to get a flight back home, and despite the restrictions still in place, she’s ready to get back to helping the Haitian people.

Her husband is going to remain down there for a year to help with this mission and said as soon as the airports open back up, she’ll be back down there with him.

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