Utah teacher one of thousands trying to leave Egypt

Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

MURRAY -- As Egypt descended closer to chaos Wednesday, a young teacher from Utah and her fiance spent hours at the Cairo airport, trying to get out.

Meanwhile, the teacher's mother in Utah says they were gouged by an American online travel company to change the flight so they could leave the country earlier than planned.

Teresa Allred has spent a full night in the Cairo airport. She's hoping to catch a flight out at 10:05 am Cairo Time (1:05 am Mountain Time.) Many flights have been canceled, so they aren't sure if they will make it out.

At first, the trouble in downtown Cairo didn't seem to threaten Allred. She's a special-education teacher at an English-language school in the suburbs -- a long way from the turmoil. Reached by cell phone at the Cairo Airport, Allred said, "When (the turmoil) finally came into the outer cities, into Maadi, which is where I was living, then that's when it was like 'this is really serious.'"

Allred's mother, Patti Godfrey of Murray, was frustrated for days, trying to get through to her daughter by cell phone. The Egyptian government had disrupted communication services. When Godfrey finally did reach her daughter on the cell phone, she was alarmed by what she heard.

"In the background I could hear some pop, pop, pop," Godfrey said. She recalls her daughter saying, "Mom, I have to keep moving away from the window because there's gunfire out there."

Allred's school shut down because of the chaos, but administrators provided a safe place for the teachers. "They took them all to the school and put them up in the gymnasium and fed them for several days," Godfrey said.

Allred spent time at the school but she also felt safe in her high-rise apartment building. "The people in Maadi had set up barricades to kind of protect looters from coming in," she said.

Allred and her fiance, Mark Watson, eventually decided it didn't make much sense to stay because the school was closed and they were planning on going on vacation to Utah later this month anyway. "When we were driving to the airport we could see tanks all along the way," Allred said.

A mob scene was waiting for them as huge numbers of people jammed airport entry areas trying to get in. Allred and Watson were able to get through security into a calmer waiting area because they had pre-paid tickets, purchased originally for their vacation.

Back home in Utah, her mother helped arrange a flight out. "She had an airline ticket to fly out later," Godfrey said. "And when we realized we needed to get her out of there now, we thought we'll just use that ticket, make the change. They charged us $2,000 to make that flight change."

Godfrey is angry that One Travel insisted on such a high fee. "We feel like we were being gouged and taken advantage of because of the circumstances," she said.

"That was a little disheartening," Allred said as she waited for her flight. "But, I mean, when you're trying to get out, you don't really know what else to do."

On television, she was able to watch the disintegrating situation in the streets. "I don't think that looks like it is going to go anywhere good," Allred said. "So I think that it's a city torn. And I hope they can figure out what's going to be best for their culture here and for the people that live here."

Patti Godfrey has never met her future son-in-law. If and when the couple gets to Utah, they hope to get acquainted.

E-mail: hollenorst@ksl.com

(Main photo: Victoria Hazou, The Associated Press)