Fleeing Florida was no easy task

We were in Miami before the hurricane at the request of my daughter, who has moved there for four years to work for the Canadian Consulate and needed help settling into her apartment.

It was only on the Wednesday that forecasters tracking the storm advised the public that hurricane Irma would be hitting the Florida Keys and South Miami, possibly as a Category 5, and a voluntary evacuation was announced.

We immediately called Air Canada to change our departure from the following Friday but were told all flights were taken.

We tried again on Thursday, only to be told the same thing. We were assured that our flight on Friday was not affected.

We had to leave the South Beach area following a mandatory evacuation notice by Thursday noon and went to Fort Lauderdale to be closer to the airport.

Late Thursday night, we received an email from Air Canada advising us that our flight had been cancelled.

We were stranded, not because we did not heed the warning of this hurricane but because our airline left us without a return flight home.

We went to the airport early Friday and were lucky enough to get on an Air Transat “rescue flight,” which brought us to Toronto without charge.

We are very thankful to this airline and praise its action. We did not understand why Air Canada cancelled its scheduled flight as it was a sunny day with many other airlines able to depart.

For people to say we should not travel to Florida during the hurricane season or to state we should have got out when they announced hurricane Irma is uncalled for.

They have no idea of the situation travellers found themselves in or how frightening it was.

We have compassion for all residents who were affected, but we should not be chastised for finding ourselves amid this horrible ordeal. Denise Bedard, Rockland