A pregnant mother traveling with her 3-year-old daughter held out for as long as she could in the southern Lebanon village of Houlah before deciding to flee.

Posting a white flag outside their car window, Monica Nelson, her daughter Ameera and two sisters-in-law drove northward, Nelson told WGME-TV on Friday after reaching Beirut. Their path took them along the border with Israel, where soldiers are massing.

Her husband, Dr. Wassim Mazraany, a surgeon, said it was a dangerous drive. But staying put was dangerous, too. A bomb hit 150 yards from a basement where his wife and daughter were taking shelter, and Israeli soldiers were embarking on raids in Lebanon.

“I tried to talk her out of it for eight days,” said Mazraany, who stayed behind in Detroit, Maine while his wife went to Lebanon to work on her doctoral thesis. “But practically anywhere in the country is safer than where she was.”

As the fighting continues, other Mainers with friends and family in Lebanon were forced to wait helplessly.

Nick and Violet Mitri and their two children from Auburn were due to leave Lebanon several days ago but their flight was canceled because of the fighting. The family was in the northern Lebanese city of Tal Abbas.

So far, at least a half-dozen Maine residents have contacted the office of Sen. Susan Collins with concerns about family members in the region, said Jen Burita, chief of communications for Collins.

The evacuation of Americans started slowly but it was picking up steam by Friday, when nearly 5,000 Americans were expected to leave. U.S. officials said more than 8,000 of the roughly 25,000 Americans who live or work in Lebanon will be evacuated by the weekend.

One Mainer who made it home to safety was David Field, former chairman of the forestry program at the University of Maine. He and two others representing the Appalachian Trail Conservancy had gone to Lebanon to develop a national trail.

Field, of Hampden, was one of the first Americans to be evacuated by helicopter because his project was sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

He was happy to leave. “We drove on roads that were blown up the day after. We walked on the waterfront, and a lighthouse was taken out a few days later. We were incredibly lucky. The average American tourist is really on the short end of the stick,” Field said.

Mainers also were caught in Israel, which has been struck by rockets launched from Lebanon by Hezbollah guerrillas.

Rachelle Tupper, 17, of Auburn, whose student tour group was scheduled to travel to northern Israel when fighting began, was staying clear of rocket attacks near the Dead Sea, according to her rabbi, Hillel Katzir of Temple Shalom in Auburn.

Rosalyne Bernstein of Portland had been visiting Jerusalem when bombardments began. She said it was difficult for her to leave on Sunday.

“I hated to come home. I wanted to stay. I wanted to be there to express my solidarity with the people of Israel,” she said.

The fighting began after two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped in a cross-border raid on July 12. Israel responded by attacking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.

On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned of a humanitarian crisis in Lebanon.

Those still in Lebanon will suffer because of the Israeli blockade, said Andre Naous of Lewiston, who’s a cousin of the Mitris. Naous said he survived Israeli bombings during Lebanon’s 1975 to 1990 civil war.

“Nothing, no food or medicine, can come in and out,” he said. “So if they run out of bread, that’s it, there’s no more bread. If this goes on for two more weeks, I don’t know how these people will care for themselves.”