When war broke out in Iran at the end of February, Floral Park’s Donna Caltabiano was nearing the end of her Middle East vacation.
She had just arrived in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, when the expanding war caused her to shelter in place. She stayed sheltered for a week, unable to catch a flight home, until her safe arrival at JFK on Sunday, March 8.
“I felt relieved when the plane took off,” she said. “Nobody helped us get out. Nobody.”
Caltabiano, 72, said that when she returned home, she ate and spent time with her family before eventually going to her home on the border of Queens and Nassau County.
She had gone to Turkey on Feb. 12 with friends, and then traveled through Jordan for 12 days with Gate 1 Tours, before arriving in Dubai.
“When we got to our hotel on Saturday, we were told that we had to stay in place, because the airports were closed and they were bombing the city,” she said. “We just got there, we didn’t know what to do next.”
As the war has expanded, the UAE has been targeted with numerous bomb and missile attacks.
“Our country was not helping us,” she said. “We heard every day, ‘Oh, they’re sending planes.’ They never sent any planes. They never sent anything.”
The U.S. State Department issued statements to citizens traveling to the UAE, urging them to follow local media and contact the department for assistance.
As of March 2, the U.S. government said all non-essential U.S. government employees and their families were to leave the UAE due to the threat of armed conflict.
Caltabiano said that efforts to call the U.S. embassy were routinely sent to voicemail, and that the automated voicemail only provided options for death or detainment abroad.
“Here I am, stuck in this country,” Caltabiano said. “‘Shelter and stay in place’ was the big line we kept hearing, and ‘stay away from windows. The whole city was made of glass. I don’t know how we could have stayed away from the windows.”
She said everyone around would routinely get alarms on their cell phones warning about incoming bombs or missiles, but that she never felt unsafe.
“I realize now that I’m home, how dangerous it probably was for us there, but at the time, it didn’t seem like this,” she said. “After a while, we just started ignoring those beeps. Sometimes, we would hear a boom, and look up and see puffs of smoke in the sky before we got the beeps.”
Caltabiano said after spending a lot of time in the hotel, she eventually started taking walks outside and eating at restaurants.
“I really can’t say that I was mistreated, I was in a five-star hotel,” she said, adding that she stayed in the Voco Bonnington Hotel. “I didn’t have to cook, I didn’t have to clean, I didn’t have to do anything.”
She said it was unclear who would cover the cost of her hotel stay and the higher travel rates. Caltabiano said the UAE’s leadership, Gate 1 Tours and the U.S. State Department had not provided specific information on how to get reimbursement.
“That’s not my highest concern right now,” she said, but she’s unsure if she’ll get her money back.
She said that after purchasing multiple $900 flights that were canceled, she finally got a seat on a $1,700 flight. She said the flight was about half empty.
She said that another American, from California, whom she had met while traveling, is still in Dubai.
