At about 8 a.m. Monday, Tammy Lewis — whose husband Steve Lewis has been trapped with scores of other Americans in Alexandria, Egypt during the turmoil that has gripped that nation — broke some news on her Facebook page.

    “The men are IN THE AIR! Just took off. Headed to London,” she wrote. “Thank you, God, for the blessings of the day! They are out of there!”

    Egypt has been going through a week of unprecedented rallies against the poverty, corruption and oppression from President Hosni Mubarak. Thousands of American citizens in the country for work or vacations have been caught up in the rioting.

    Steve Lewis, along with several other men from the Meridian and Lauderdale County area, was on an oil rig when the rioting broke out. Tammy Lewis said her husband and 19 other U.S. citizens were among the workers who docked the oil rig at a port in Alexandria. She said he and the others had to wait while flights out of the country were arranged.

    “I’m just so relieved he is out of there and in London now,” Lewis said Monday afternoon. “They will try to get a flight out (today) and get on home. That will be a blessing to say the least.”

    Those who followed her Facebook entries noted how the men on the rig, where Steve Lewis works as an electrician, raised the rig about 50 feet to make it harder for anyone to get to them. Later, Steve Lewis and the other men, including Josh Boyette, Jason Alexander, Dewayne Chandler and others, were moved to the nearby Egyptian Navy Base where on Monday they left to catch a private charter sent by the rig’s owner, Rowan.

    “He hasn’t really been able to tell much detail,” said Tammy Lewis. “He has been so rushed when he called. But he did say the rioters were beginning to force the fences down around the base when they left. I guess they got out of there just in time.”

    Lewis said although she was extremely worried for her husband, she was somewhat comforted by his military training. Steve Lewis was a master sergeant with the Air National Guard.

    “He’s a pretty cool guy when it comes to pressure,” she said. “But over there they didn’t really have a whole lot of friends, so I was worried.”  

  Lewis said the men would be bussed to two separate Alexandria airports for flights out of the country on Monday afternoon. As the protest demonstrations escalate in Alexandria and Cairo, Tammy Lewis said the danger of traveling from the Egyptian Naval Base — where they were docked — to the airports through 100,000 violent protesters was a huge concern.

    Rowan Companies, Inc. is a major provider of international and domestic contract drilling services. Rowan operates oil rigs in the North Sea, the Middle East and the Gulf of Mexico.