Michael Scott was in the car Tuesday on a seemingly ordinary trip to get groceries at Wal-Mart when he heard an announcement on the radio.

An earthquake had hit the country of Haiti, where his father and brother were on a mission trip. The earthquake registered at 7.0 in magnitude, according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s Web site.

Scott, a civil engineering junior, said his family members are traveling with 13 people from Capital City Christian Church, located in Frankfort, to take supplies and help Haitian churches.

Scott said he was in disbelief when he heard the news.

“When I first heard it, I didn’t know if I heard it right or not,” he said.

Scott, who has traveled to Haiti before, said he was especially worried because he knows how unstable ceilings in the country can be.

Scott’s mother called him while he was in the grocery store to tell him his dad had sent her a text message letting her know that he and his son were OK.

“I don’t think anybody’s talked to anybody on the phone,” Scott said. “It’s just been through text.”

Jordan Stuban, a social work sophomore at Bluegrass Community and Technical College, has been on several mission trips to Haiti, including a month-long trip last semester. Stuban spent all of October working at a Haitian orphanage with the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission.

Stuban said she first heard of the earthquake through Facebook and has not been able to get in contact with any of her friends that go to school at nearby Port-au-Prince, a city devastated by the earthquake.

“When you call their cell phones, it says ‘this country can’t be reached right now,’ ” she said.

Stuban plans to collect items to send to Haiti and organize a spring break trip to help rebuild communities devastated by the earthquake.

Scott said several members of his dad and brother’s work group were able to hike to a satellite phone to let church members know everyone in the group is OK, but they do not know when they can come home.

Exact numbers are not known, however Haitian President Rene Preval has estimated tens of thousands of fatalities resulted from the earthquake.