SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — With military strikes continuing in the Middle East, the work to get many Americans who were stuck in the region out, and home, continues.

One such story involves a Seminole County couple, who, in a span of days, went from wondering how they would get back to Central Florida to being back in the comfort of their own home.

What You Need To Know

Seminole County couple Ken and Joy Davis got stuck in Israel after a trip to visit their daughter.

The two say they had to stay in Israel longer than expected because of Israeli airspace closing after air strikes.

U.S. Embassy and State Department teams helped the couple get on a commercial flight back stateside.

Ken and Joy say they were surprised by how Israelis calmly reacted and went about their days during strikes.

For Joy Davis, painting and working on her craft is how she likes to spend her days, while her husband Ken enjoys time at their pool at their Longwood home.

This is the norm for this retired couple, but just days prior, in Israel, their daily life looked very different.

“The only stress we experienced was the very first time we heard a siren, because we didn’t know what to expect, and we didn’t even know what the safe room looked like, and they helped us down there,” Joy Davis said.

The two were there making one of their regular visits to their daughter to help her move from Northern Israel to Jerusalem.

But just as their week-long trip was about to end, they learned that all flights out of the country were canceled as Israel closed its airspace due to airstrikes.

“We probably had maybe 10 times that we had to go into a safe room. And the safe room wasn’t anything we expected,” Ken Davis explained. “It was a room either in a stairwell or room at the bottom of the hotel.”

Ken says they received alerts via their phone and their hotel about 10 minutes before a suspected strike to give them time to bunker down. But what shocked them the most was the calm reactions from everyone around them.

“It was business as usual. They walked around the streets, and when we heard a siren, everybody just went into a safe room in a hotel or a building or wherever they were. But it didn’t seem like we were under attack 24/7,” Joy said.

The Davis’s said they never felt in danger but still wanted to get home.

They worked with the U.S. government for almost a week to figure out when and how they would get back.

“The arrangements were made by the State Department or the embassy. They let us know early Sunday morning at around 4 a.m.,” Ken said.

After a brief delay at the Tel Aviv Airport on Sunday, Ken and Joy said they could breathe a sigh of relief once they got out of Israeli airspace.

Then, they made their 14-hour journey to Miami International Airport where they took a quick trip home on the Brightline.

It’s a feat they know would not be possible without U.S. government aid.

“You could count on the people in the Embassy and the State Department to take care of us,” Ken said.

Ken and Joy say they usually take two to three trips a year to Israel to visit their daughter, and although the return trip was more complicated this time around, they said it will not stop them from heading back.