‘Everybody is in panic mode’: Canadians escape from and prepare for Hurricane Irma

Thousands of people on the Caribbean Islands scrambled to get out of Hurricane Irma’s path this week.

Canadian Krum Dochev was one of them. He and his partner were visiting Cayo Coco in Cuba and arrived before there was any ‘commotion about the storm.’

READ MORE: Halifax pair in Dominican Republic prepares for Hurricane Irma

According to Dochev, trying to get evacuation information from Sunwing Airlines was nearly impossible.

“We started asking for more information from the representative of the company at the hotel and that’s where we encountered this wall, where nobody had any information to give,” Dochev said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We started asking for more information from the representative of the company at the hotel and that's where we encountered this wall, where nobody had any information to give," Dochev said.

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In response Sunwing Airlines sent this statement:

“We continue to monitor Hurricane Irma closely and have been in regular contact with our local representatives in destination regarding the potential impact of the storm on our customers. In Cuba, the Cayo Islands remain under a hurricane warning and due to airport closures, we proactively evacuated these customers by land to Varadero,  where we have sent in special flights to bring these customers home early.”

WATCH:Hurricane Irma wallops Turks and Caicos

0:29 Hurricane Irma wallops Turks and Caicos

Dochev claims that in Cuba, communication about possible evacuation plans wasn’t easy to find.

“We knew that Air Transat and Air Canada and West Jet, had sent additional flights to evacuate their customers but for Sunwing, we didn’t know if that was the case. It was a really awful scene, it was a really awful time,” Dochev said.

According to an emailed statement from Sunwing Media, 18 rescue flights have been sent out of Cuba and six more are scheduled for Saturday.

Kerry Doelling, originally from New Brunswick, has had many sleepless nights as she prepares for Irma to hit Florida.

“Everybody is kind of in panic mode. It’s not easy to think about the possibility of your home not being here when it’s gone,” Doelling said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Everybody is kind of in panic mode. It's not easy to think about the possibility of your home not being here when it's gone," Doelling said.

READ MORE: Hurricane Irma: What Canadians should know about the ‘potentially catastrophic’ storm

She and several others, are preparing to seek refuge in a bunker she and her husband built 10 years ago.

“There’s going to be eight adults and six dogs and five cats. The bunker is built specifically to withstand a category 5 or 6 hurricane,” Doelling said.

Irma is set to make landfall in Florida this Saturday.