There is fear and frustration among Canadians who are stuck in the path of Hurricane Irma, worried what the next few hours and the next few days will bring.

And there is relief from those who managed to get out before Hurricane Irma hit.

Canadians are no strangers to adverse weather; we get hit by storms here all the time.  But a category 5 hurricane?  Well, that can strike a chord of fear in even the toughest Canuck.

The view at noon from Sandra Doiron's hotel in Punta Cana showed high winds, dark skies and a looming possibility of more to come.  The Ottawa native is in the Dominican celebrating her birthday with her husband and a friend.

“Yeah, it hasn’t been a great celebration,” Doiron said in an interview from her hotel, as she walked us around, showing how she had been preparing for Irma.

“We had the fridge stocked with fruit and vegetables, whatever we thought we needed to get by,” she says, “We had our backpacks ready to go, on foot if we needed.”

Doiron and her group have been busy stocking up for an emergency and trying to find a way home as soon as possible.  They say Sunwing has left them high and dry.

“Anyone with Air Canada, Air Transat and WestJet are gone, it’s just the people with Sunwing who are stuck behind,” she lamented.

Air Transat sent 10 planes to the Dominican to rescue their customers, as did other airlines. Those passengers arrived home to Montreal and Toronto last night.

“When they said a category 4 and 5 we were terrified,” one woman said, “we wanted to come back here.”

Sunwing said in a news release yesterday that it was monitoring the hurricane and in the process of sending flights to affected areas.

In an email today, Sunwing said, “Given the number of passengers in Punta Cana at the time we were not able to accommodate everyone who wanted to leave early but for those remaining we worked closely with the hotels in activating hurricane plans.”  

Ottawa resident Glenn MacDonald was one of those evacuees who landed in Toronto and Montreal last night.

“I feel very lucky I got out when I did,” MacDonald said in an interview through FaceTime, “It was really quite scary what was approaching, but the lack of understanding was what made it even more scary for me, knowing that there were people unaware of how much danger they were in.”

Kerrin Cochrane is all too aware of the danger.  The Ottawa native is doing an internship in the Dominican and last night busy boarding up her windows and doors.

“I know we'll be okay,” she said, “we've prepared for the worst and we have lots of food and water. The hardest part will be losing power and not being able to contact my family to let them know I'm ok.”

And on the ground making sure people are okay are emergency relief organizations like the Canadian Red Cross, already busy dealing with Hurricane Harvey.

“We have lots of personnel still in Canada and in Americas ready to deploy,” said Chiran Livera with the Canadian Red Cross, “Many of these people like me, this is what we do for a living but for sure it's a long disaster season for us.”

The Canadian Red Cross is appealing for donations to help the victims of hurricane Irma. That will help with the emergency response efforts for the estimated 31 million people in Irma's path. People can make a donation at www.redcross.ca.