A family and service members walk outdoors at the U.S. Navy base in Manama, Bahrain, May 31, 2023. (Jensen Guillory/U.S. Army)

MANAMA, Bahrain — The last time Elena Coray and her family had to leave Bahrain, she was caught off guard.

It was June, and the Pentagon had just authorized voluntary departures for military families amid tensions with Iran. Coray, however, was out of the loop. Her phone was off, and she was in the commissary with her three kids when her husband, a Navy chief, found her and said it was time to leave.

“He said, ‘Babe, your flight’s in 30 minutes,’ ” she said. “ ‘Pack snacks.’ ”

Now, about seven months after returning to Bahrain, Coray and hundreds of other military families stationed on the island are wondering if they’ll have to undergo a repeat of last summer.

Once again, escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran have put the region on edge. The Pentagon is steadily moving more military assets into the theater — including the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group — and Iran’s supreme leader has threatened to retaliate against American military bases if the U.S. attacks.

It is unclear whether the U.S. plans to strike. President Donald Trump and Iranian leaders have said they want to negotiate, but Trump also has indicated he’d be willing to take military action if a deal is not made.

For Coray, vice president of the Bahrain Family Readiness Group, the looming threat of conflict means preparing her family and others in case they have to quickly leave the island.

“We’re really trying not to fearmonger and not to freak people out,” Coray told Stars and Stripes in an interview. “But we can prepare today, right? It’s important.”

The U.S. maintains some 40,000 troops in the Central Command region — in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan and other countries. Bahrain, home to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, has about 8,600 personnel, according to estimates from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and is one of the few billets in the region that supports accompanied tours.

Naval Support Activity Bahrain in Manama, Bahrain, shown here on April 14, 2022, is the headquarters of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, the U.S. 5th Fleet, and Combined Maritime Forces. Some community members are anticipating a voluntary evacuation of the installation amid increasing tension between the U.S. and Iran. (J.P. Lawrence/Stars and Stripes)

Last summer, as the U.S. prepared to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Pentagon authorized voluntary departures for dependents who wanted to return to the U.S.

Rebecca Rovinsky, whose husband is in the Navy, said she and her family had been in Bahrain for less than a week when they got the notice about departures. Even though they had barely unpacked, the couple decided it was best for Rovinsky and their kids to evacuate.

A few days later, she boarded a C-130 with her two sons, ages 3 and 7, and their dachshund, Darcy, headed back to the U.S.

Ultimately, Bahrain was not targeted during the 12-day conflict. Iran launched about a dozen missiles at the nearby Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, causing minor damage to the facilities there, and after a few weeks, families returned to the region and normal operations resumed.

But Rovinsky said her anxiety remained.

“There’s just a lingering feeling in the back of your brain that things went south very quickly before, and it could happen again,” she said in a recent interview with Stripes from her home in Bahrain.

With the addition of three destroyers in the Lincoln strike group, the U.S. now has at least eight destroyers in the region, including two in the Persian Gulf, one in the Red Sea and two in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

The arrival of the strike group also brought about 5,700 more service members to the region, The Associated Press reported, and it joins three littoral combat ships that were already deployed.

Mala Goodman has lived in Bahrain with her husband, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, and their two kids, ages 6 and 3, since 2024. She said the departures last summer felt sudden. This time, however, she said she feels like she has the benefit of experience.

“It just wasn’t on my radar,” she said of the June conflict. “This one is on my radar.”

Goodman, an ombudsman on base, was already in the U.S. on a preplanned trip when families began leaving Bahrain in June. Now, being back on the island, she said she’s trying to balance day-to-day family obligations with the knowledge they might have to leave in a hurry.

“What’s weird is living in these two realities where it’s like, ‘Oh gosh, we have Girl Scouts. We’ve got to get to baseball practice, and so-and-so’s birthday party this week.’ And also: ‘Make sure you have powers of attorney,’” she said.

For now, Coray said she feels alert and prepared for potential threats, and is relying on her faith and the support of fellow board members at the Family Readiness Group to navigate the uncertainties.

She said the group is encouraging families to have a game plan in the event of voluntary departures or evacuations, including filling out their NEO packet: a set of checklists and documents used in noncombatant evacuation operations.

Rovinsky, meanwhile, said she’s focused on evacuation preparation. She has checklists for every member of her household, including the dog. She’s pulling out winter weather gear, thinking about what kinds of snacks to bring, and making sure her kids’ iPads are loaded with enough episodes of “Angry Birds” and “Paw Patrol.”

She said she’s trying to keep an open mind and avoid spiraling into unknowns.

“I’ve been personally just trying not to think about it,” she said. “You know, that’s sometimes all you can do is just distract yourself.”