One of the Mainers in Paris during the terrorist attacks Friday night didn’t realize they were occurring until she started receiving texts from people in the United States.

But Krista Irmischer, a 46-year-old Portland resident, said she and a friend had been in front of the Bataclan concert hall about an hour before terrorists reportedly took hostages there and shot members of the audience.

Artist Tanja Hollander of Auburn, another Mainer in the French capital Friday night, posted a video to her Facebook page with a message that said she was safe in a bar “where people are kind.”

Irmischer, who is in Paris attending a convention for people involved with Airbnb, the online service for people to rent and find lodging, said she was in front of the hall shortly before 7 p.m. local time and didn’t see anything unusual as people started to enter the theater. She did notice that the band playing was called the “Eagles of Death Metal.”

She returned to her Airbnb room, near the Bastille, and didn’t know the attacks were taking place until she started getting messages from friends in the U.S. and realized the concert hall she and her friend had passed was the site of one of the attacks.

“All the streets are pretty quiet except for the sirens going by,” she said.

Irmischer said the conference is being attended by about 5,000 people from 123 countries, but most are Americans.

Irmischer said security at the conference, which started Wednesday, has been high, with frequent checks of the bags that people are carrying. However, she said there was no visible security in the Paris Metro, the city’s subway system.

The conference was scheduled to end Saturday, she said, but Irmischer expects the final session will be canceled. She is scheduled to return to the U.S. Sunday, but is preparing for flight schedules to be scrambled by the attacks.

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