When Hurricane Maria tore the roof off their house on the Caribbean island of Dominica, Sara Ouellette Subero, her two children and husband climbed inside a wooden closet to escape the trees and furniture the storm flung around.

The family stayed there for four hours. Subero and her husband held tightly to their baby and five-year-old daughter as the closet was buffeted by blasts of wind.

Once the hurricane passed through their resort, the family lived inside a car, the only dry place available to them. Just as the family’s food supply was diminishing, two helicopters from the governments of Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago came to their rescue.

Subero and her two children made it home to Sturgeon Falls, Ont. Monday.

Stephan Ricardo Subero, her husband who was born in Trinidad and raised in Venezuela, decided to stay in Dominica to salvage what he could of their property and possessions.

“It’s all so overwhelming,” Sara Subero said Monday. “I didn’t know just how bad the devastation was until I was in the helicopter looking down. All the green, lush landscape was now just brown and black.”

The Category 5 hurricane wrought havoc across the Caribbean island of Dominica last week, killing at least 15 people. The hurricane’s extensive destruction to homes and power left thousands stranded without shelter. With winds above 255 km/h, the storm silenced all communication and ripped trees from their roots, rendering the island stripped of foliage.

Sara, 30, and her husband, Stephan, 33, moved from Sturgeon Falls, northwest of Algonquin Provincial Park, to Dominica in 2014. Their small resort once offered a simple, natural environment to travellers passing through the island.

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Sara said the resort is now unrecognizable. Palm trees and pieces of ripped bark lie scattered across the muddy ground. Two buildings have completely disappeared from the property and the home where guests used to stay is filled with mud waist-deep, due to a landslide.

“It didn’t look like home anymore,” she said. “The doors and windows had all flown off; we were able to walk through buildings, where the walls used to be.”

The seven guests staying with the family when the hurricane hit were able to take the 27-kilometre walk to the capital city, Roseau, on Thursday. The Suberos were unable to do the same because of their small children. Mud, construction nails and debris lay across the roads and paths. The family had no choice but to stay in their car for five days with little food.

“Everything we had was destroyed,” said Sara. “When we saw the helicopters approaching, we felt overwhelmed. It was shocking; we weren’t sure what to do.”

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Subero’s mother, Lynn Cockburn-Ouellette waited days to hear about her daughter’s fate after the hurricane hit. The last time she spoke to her, Sara was huddled between mattresses, hiding from the hurricane with her two children.

Cockburn-Ouellette, who spent the entire week since the hurricane hit on her computer organizing rescue efforts and contacting consulates, said she organized a GoFundMe page to help the family rebuild all that they lost.

“I know things were going to get worse if they stayed,” she said Monday. “When we saw them it was such a relief; I don’t even know what to say. This whole week was so worrisome.”

Dominica was Hurricane Maria’s first major casualty as it carved its deadly path through the Caribbean, causing further destruction in the British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. The U.S. East Coast is expected to get hit on Monday with high winds and treacherous surf from the storm. Maria followed Irma, another deadly hurricane.