Tough crowd here.

There were also students attending various post secondary institutions who needed to be evacuated. They were not all able to get out on commercial flights.  

I have no problems with my tax dollars going towards humanitarian efforts, including evacuation when needed. Flights carry aid workers and supplies have  return seats that can be filled.

Living in or visiting  a hurricane zone?  

Increasingly summer wildfires here in BC have meant that much of the Province is a fire zone, including some of it's larger cities like Kelowna. Coastal communities here are in a subduction zone.   Massive flooding  affected many communities in BC's interior this spring.

Yeah maybe some travellers and residents were foolhardy - not listening to evacuation orders and not leaving when they had the time and means to do so. Bit hard to work up sympathy for them, but not everyone falls into that category.