The death toll stands at 525 after a devastating earthquake in Ecuador.
As the country picks up the pieces, Maine students who were in the country when disaster struck are finally home.
There were no shortage of luggage or loved ones looking at arrival times at Logan Airport’s baggage claim.
“It’s a nervous excitement,” Treena Garrison said Wednesday morning. “We’re just feeling so blessed that our kids are coming back.”
Anxiety on Wednesday didn’t compare to panic family felt over the weekend, when eight students and three adults from the Greater Portland Christian School were on a service trip in Ecuador.
Parts of cities and towns such as Manta, where the students were, are now destroyed. Thankfully the group survived, catching a flight home Tuesday night.
The group was in a pastor’s home in Ecuado when they felt the shaking.
“We got outside, and it got really, really bad. Then I heard bricks falling down, I heard screaming and I’m like ‘oh damn, we might not make it back,’” student Shaun Teague said.
That feeling turned into a desire to help a family that lost its home.
Now the group has time to reflect, time to try and get back to normal.