Irma aftermath an 'utter hell': Windsor woman worries for missing friends

Michelle Turnbull feels helpless here in Windsor as she watches television images of the devastation Hurricane Irma is wreaking on her former home in the British Virgin Islands.

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Some of her friends are describing the carnage as "utter hell." Many more of them are still unaccounted for as the "extremely dangerous" Category 5 storm continues to batter the Caribbean. 

"I'm just a little numb. I am worried for them, I'm worried for the aftermath. How do you rebuild from that?" said Turnbull Thursday. "If you have three kids and no home, and nowhere else to stay, what do you do?"

Photos and videos from the island of Tortola show pure destruction, making almost unrecognizable the island Turnbull called home for six years.  Many parts of the island have been reduced to rubble. Buildings have been flattened, boats mangled and cars overturned.

The British Virgin Islands suffered "severe damage," according to U.K. Foreign Minister Alan Duncan. Britain has dispatched a navy ship carrying marines and army engineers to its affected islands, which include Anguilla, Monsterrat and Turks and Caicos.

At least 11 dead

Elsewhere, at least 11 people have been killed in the storm, dozens more injured. French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told Franc Info that eight people died in the French Caribbean island territories of St. Martin and St. Barthelemy after the Category 5 storm struck Wednesday.

Anxiety is setting in for Turnbull now that the storm has passed. Turnbull, a mom of two young children, knows about 30 people in Tortola, and she's only made contact with four of them.

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Clinging to hope her friends have survived, she's joined a Facebook group designed to connect outsiders with those on the ground. So far, it's accumulated more than 13,000 people who are searching for loved ones, and others who are posting they're OK.

People were barricaded into bathrooms- Michelle Turnbull

"We all had hurricane shutters but the wind just ripped the shutters right off, pushed people's doors in and people were barricaded into bathrooms, and you just don't have anywhere to go," Turnbull said.

Now she's searching for ways to help, whether it be ordering and shipping supplies to that area from Amazon, or starting a shipping container. It's essential, she said, to find a way to get things like water, flashlights and even chainsaws into the area.

-- With files from Associated Press