AUBURN, MAINE — A Utah woman found herself putting on a brave face and keeping kids calm Wednesday night as a mass shooting shelter-in-place interrupted a church youth gathering.
“We were pretty focused on keeping them calm and helping them stay calm and trying to distract them a little bit,” said Cindi Braby. “We locked down the building. We tried to turn off our lights and move to the interior of the building.”
Braby grew up in Vernal, Utah, and attended BYU. She was known in Utah as the popular blogger Utah Mom’s Life before her family packed up and moved to Maine.
“Our ward is pretty reflective of the diversity that is in Lewiston. We love it. It’s very vibrant,” she said
Braby was with the Young Women’s group at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints meetinghouse in Auburn, less than seven miles from the two shooting locations.
“It’s unnerving. We still don’t really know and we recognize that the neighborhoods and communities are small enough by the time we start to hear names and numbers, it’s going to have a huge impact,” Braby said.
After a few hours in lockdown, Braby took a handful of those kids to her home twenty miles north to let them safely stay the night.
Meanwhile, law enforcement searched for suspected shooter Robert Card.
“The area is so wooded. There’s a lot of places to hide. He could be really anywhere and that’s uncomfortable,” said Braby.
Between the manhunt, the death toll, and the shock to the tight-knit community, Braby said there’s too much to process right now.
“It’s worrisome. I’m worried for the youth, I’m worried for our families, and just concerned how the healing will be afterward,” she said.
