Sirens blared out from the phones of dozens of travelers gathered by the Qatar airport gate in near unison on Saturday, a national emergency alert warning people to shelter in place.
Cory Katuna of Longmont was only supposed to be in Doha, Qatar, for three hours on Saturday morning — a mid-flight layover on her way from India to Italy. Everything went smoothly until the Qatar Airlines pilot turned the Italy-bound plane around on the tarmac, leaving passengers with more questions than answers, she said in a phone interview Thursday.
The group of travelers had settled in for the indeterminate delay at the gate back inside Hamad International Airport in Doha when the emergency alert came in, Katuna said.
“I think mine went off first,” Katuna said. “That’s what it felt like, you know, my phone starts making this crazy sound, everybody’s looking over at me and then everybody else’s starts going off. It was just this surge of adrenaline.”
Being unable to understand the alert, which appeared to be written in Arabic, only added to her sudden panic.
The translated alert warned people to take shelter, but offered no specifics about the danger, Katuna said. When she looked outside, she spotted trails of smoke in the air that other passengers claimed were from intercepted missiles.
A video posted Thursday by the Associated Press shows what appear to be additional missile interceptions over the capital on Thursday.
The entire airport was locked down over the weekend as Qatar’s airspace closed, she said. No flights were allowed in or out.
Katuna wandered around the airport for hours before grabbing dinner and setting up in an overnight sleeping pod. Her rest came to an abrupt end when the airport was evacuated just before 2 a.m. and travelers were sent away with hotel vouchers.
But the hotel didn’t have enough rooms and turned most people away, she said. Staff directed travelers to another nearby hotel with limited space that would honor the voucher, and she raced with another American to grab a rideshare, the car speeding by dozens of people running down the street toward the hope of available rooms.
“We didn’t know to what degree this was an emergency,” Katuna said. “Like, how bad is it? … Are our lives actually at risk? It was definitely disconcerting.”
Katuna has stayed at that hotel for five nights now and said she has yet to get either her baggage or answers from the U.S. government on how they’re expected to leave when flights are grounded, or if any assistance will be offered. She said she’s heard seven or eight explosions Thursday.
The U.S. told American citizens to leave more than a dozen countries in the region on Tuesday. The countries include Iran and Israel, as well as Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
But when Katuna called the hotline for citizens in need of help getting home, she was met with a message advising against relying on the U.S. government to evacuate.
The U.S. State Department said Tuesday it was “actively securing” military and charter aircraft to fly Americans out of the region. It said it was in contact with nearly 3,000 citizens seeking assistance or information.
“We know that we’re going to be able to help them,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Associated Press on Tuesday, while cautioning that “it’s going to take a little time because we don’t control the airspace closures.”
Travelers are asked to sign up for the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, which will allow the U.S. State Department to get in contact with them, according to federal officials.
Other airports in the Middle East are open or offering limited flights, but that means Katuna would need to give up her guaranteed hotel room — which Qatar Airlines is covering for the duration of the airspace closure — and risk extensive ground travel across unknown regions, she said. And other airports could close by the time she arrives, Katuna added.
“It just doesn’t feel secure,” she said.
As of Thursday morning, Qatar Airlines had started to organize a limited number of relief flights “to assist passengers affected by the current situation and temporary airspace closures across the region,” according to a service update from the airline. Those flights are based out of Muscat in Oman and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, hundreds of miles in either direction from Doha.
“We are working around the clock to organise additional relief flights where operationally possible and will share further updates as soon as they are confirmed,” airline officials stated in the update.
Colorado’s elected officials are also working to bring residents home, including Sen. Michael Bennet.
“Senator Bennet’s office is working directly with Coloradans who are seeking to depart the Middle East,” a spokesperson said in an email to JS. “We welcome all Coloradans trying to leave the region to contact our office directly at 303-455-7600.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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