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Her 12-year-old daughter, Miesha, had also joined the mission.

“I haven’t been in that kind of situation before in all of the times that I’ve been to Haiti, so it’s kind of just sad to leave,” Miesha said.

“It was scary because I do know a lot of people that live in the general area that the riots were happening (in). I was worried for their safety.”

The evacuation was made difficult due to unsafe conditions travelling by main roads, according to Honorat. She said other foreigners described trying to drive to the airport, but found their windows smashed by rioters by the time they arrived.

The group was in touch with a local helicopter company that managed to evacuate members of Haiti ARISE over the course of three trips on Saturday. All members of the group were taken to Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, before they caught flights to Miami.

Photo by Gavin Young / Postmedia

They spent the night in Florida before connecting to Calgary through Dallas on Sunday morning.

Honorat said her husband, Haiti ARISE co-founder Marc Honorat, stayed behind to support people in need.

“He didn’t want to send the wrong message that anytime there’s something wrong we just all leave,” she said. “He’s just going to wait it out and if it calms down, then he’ll come home for a bit to be with us.”

Kevin Good, who was in the country with his 13-year-old son, Michael, said things could have become dire if they weren’t able to flee soon.

“We were safe in a compound. We were going to be running out of food . . . so we took matters into our own hands,” said Good.