Hexham family left to ride out Hurricane Irma speak of their terror

As another hurricane causes utter devastation in the Caribbean we speak to a Hexham man who survived Irma by the skin of this teeth.

Gary Oloman and his wife were supposed to miss the storm hitting Cuba, but while others flew home to safety, they were among thousands of people who had their flights cancelled.

The Hexham family told us they felt abandoned by the tour operator, who rescheduled their flight home days later. Gary said:

“It was horrendous; imagine waiting for something that you have never experienced in your life… I was trying to keep the wife calm; we were tucked up in a bathroom… petrified.

“There were windows and glass doors that could have come through at any time and as it was getting further we did not know what was happening because the communication went out.

“I wanted to just get out of there. What made it worse was that there was flights leaving. My son found us flights out of Havana but the prices were astronomical, they were about £1000 each. If we wanted to get out, we had to spend a lot of money.

“People’s lives were at risk. The Canadians could get their people out, the Argentinians could get their people out… Why couldn’t Thomas Cook get the British out of there?”

But, Gary praised the local people in Cuba:

“Just like Geordies, they took us in, they looked after us and they made us feel safe.

The Cuban people were fantastic. We had people that were actually looking after us in the hotels and in the resort. They were absolutely fantastic, I can’t say enough about these people because they came around and knocked on doors part way through the hurricane offering us food and water.

Meanwhile Thomas Cook have responded to the accusations they could have done more to help customers. A spokesperson said:

“All of our efforts have been focused on bringing our customers home safely as soon as possible and the evacuation of our customers from Cuba is now complete. We mobilised a 66-strong special assistance team to provide on-the-ground support for our customers on holiday across Cuba and Orlando. Those due to travel to Cuba were offered free cancellations and amendments.

Due to the scale of the damage, communication during and after the hurricane was challenging. We kept in touch with our customers as much as possible, informing them of updates to their travel plans through our reps in resort, as well as by SMS or email.

We are hugely grateful to our customers for their patience and would like to reassure them that they will be contacted by our Customer Relations team within seven days of their arrival back to the UK to discuss refunds, incidental costs, or losses that may have been incurred."