Several Maine residents who are in Paris said the city seemed to be returning to life as usual on Saturday, a day after being stunned by coordinated terrorist attacks that killed at least 129 people.
Portland resident Krista Irmischer, who was in Paris for a conference, said by phone that she and a friend from England were surprised to see so many people out on the streets Saturday morning.
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“When we were out this morning, it just seemed kind of business as usual. Shops were open,” Irmischer said.
Irmischer said she had walked on the street in front of the Bataclan concert hall Friday night about an hour before terrorists struck there and took hostages, and she had walked down another street where terrorists struck in a different attack in shootings at cafes.
“It was all happening around us, but not close enough for us to see,” she said.
Irmischer said Friday night’s attacks were so jarring to her that she just wanted to get out of Paris as soon as she could on Saturday. She had been in Paris for a convention for people involved with Airbnb, the online service for people to rent and find lodging, but Saturday’s events were canceled because of the attacks.
Irmischer spoke by phone from the airport after rescheduling her Sunday flight back to the United States to get a flight on Saturday to Dublin, where she planned to spend the night before flying home Sunday by a different connection than planned.
“When I tried to fall asleep last night, I was still anxious,” she said. “Now that I’m out of the heart of Paris, I feel relieved.”
Irmischer said it was hard while still in France to get a full understanding of what had happened, but she said the nation had reopened its borders and seemed to want people to be able to leave.
Newlyweds Aimee Arsenault Labbe and Chris Labbe of the Androscoggin County town of Poland were in Paris for their honeymoon and had just returned to their hotel after an evening out Friday when the attacks occurred.
“We had just eaten a late dinner and had been walking around the Latin Quarter, and returned to our hotel about 15 minutes before the attack,” Aimee Arsenault Labbe said by email on Saturday. “We had the TV on, watching BBC and heard breaking news that there was a ‘shooting.’ Within another five minutes, more and more reports of shootings and explosions were reported as breaking news and we could hear a steady stream of sirens in the city. We started to become concerned and realized this was much larger than we initially thought. We immediately called our parents and took to Facebook to let everyone know we were OK.”
Aimee Arsenault Labbe, a manager at the Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing in Lewiston, said she and her husband had exhausted their cellphone minutes but were still able to stay in contact electronically.
“We’ve been hunkered down in our hotel room in the 5th arrondissement since we learned of the news last night around 9 p.m. We are not in the same districts of the attacks,” she said in another email around 10:30 a.m. Saturday, which was the afternoon in Paris. “We just stepped out about an hour ago to get some food at a cafe just next to our hotel. It seems as though while some businesses are closed, many are open and there are a lot of people walking around, carrying on with life as per usual. It does seem quieter than yesterday afternoon, but only slightly. We expected to see empty streets and dark restaurants but that was not the case.”
Tanja Hollander, a photographer from Auburn, sent text messages from Paris on Saturday, describing what she was seeing during the day after having posted a video on Instagram Friday night of a street scene with blaring sirens.
“I don’t speak French so don’t have a sense of what people are saying. Just moved to a new Airbnb a block from the club,” Hollander wrote, referring to the Bataclan concert hall. “There is a flower memorial in park across the street, no vigils (they are banned). The streets are somber.”
Hollander said some things were open on Saturday and that she was able to have lunch in a cafe.
“People are out, but not in usual numbers,” she said.
Another Maine photographer, Jack Montgomery of Freeport, shared a message on Facebook from Paris on Saturday.
“If I had not read the news accounts of last night I would not have had any idea that anything was amiss. November is a relatively quiet month here. I spent a lot of time in New York City in the days following 9/11 and this was an entirely different scene. It is not unusual to see soldiers with sub-machine guns in public places in Paris. There were four in the shopping area beneath the Louvre when I visited there on Thursday afternoon. But in this part of Paris I saw nothing different today except somewhat fewer people,” Montgomery wrote.
Montgomery said he has been staying in a flat in the center of Paris and declined an invitation for dinner on Friday night so he could go to bed early.
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