(CNN) -- Is she hurt? Is she getting help? Is she even alive? Those were the jumbled thoughts that raced through Sereth Hosty's mind in her Long Island, New York, home as she tirelessly scoured the news and Web for clues to the whereabouts of her elderly mother in Haiti. Since an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck Tuesday, Augusta Thervil, 83, was among the growing number of people who had gone missing in the Port-au-Prince area. And her daughter was among those living in limbo. "I check. I check. I check," Hosty said earlier this week. She had spent two days trying to reach her mother, neighbors and family friends by phone. She even placed a posting on CNN.com's iReport with her mother's picture.
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NEW: Woman finds out through cousin that her 83-year-old mother is alive
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Families are using social media and the Internet to find people affected by the earthquake
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Psychologists say the panic and frustration experienced by families is similar to 9/11
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"Everyone grieves differently," said Kristi Cooper, a family life field specialist
After 9/11, families frantically drove into @placeholder, trying to display their loved ones' photographs to the public in hopes of recovering the person -- or their body.