If home is where the heart is, Krishaunda Cartwright isn't sure where she belongs these days.

She's staying at her mother's house in Nova Scotia for the time being, but the last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind for the 34-year-old mother of two.

Cartwright, who grew up in North Preston, but moved to the Bahamas a decade ago, came home to regroup after surviving the full wrath of Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas.

She and her young family are safe, but they've lost everything they own.

"There are heavy rains, raging winds, and you just have things hitting the house and the windows," Cartwright said, describing the fury of Dorian striking the Bahamas.

Although Dorian did significant damage in the Maritimes, it was nothing compared to the pounding the Bahamas endured over several days.

When the family finally got back into the new house they'd fled, everything had been swept or blown away.

"The table legs from the dining room table were in the rafters," Cartwright said. "They were in the roof."

She brought her children -- aged eight and three -- to the safety of Nova Scotia and is getting a lot of support from friends and family.

"We are worried about her," said longtime friend Marko Simmonds. "How is she going to move on from this?"

A GoFundMe campaign that was launched a few days ago is starting to get traction online, and an aunt has opened a special account at the Credit Union, spreading the word through church bulletins and community posters.

"What better time for us to come together and help one of our own, not just because it's one of our own, but because it's such a tragedy that has happened to all those people," said Paulette Skier Slater, Cartwright's aunt.

Cartwright is in constant contact with her husband in the Bahamas and struggles with guilt and a sense of duty. She lost friends in the storm and works for the local power company.

She knows they need her there.

"Just because I have a way out doesn't mean I forget where I've lived for the past 11 years of my life," Cartwright says. "I have friends and family there, too."

Determined to help in her adopted home, Cartwright says she will fly back to the Bahamas on Wednesday morning.

She says there's far too much to do there for her to sit here. If all goes according to plan, though, the whole family will be relocated back in Halifax by the end of the year - starting new lives in a place that also felt the wrath of Dorian, but not nearly as badly.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Bruce Frisko.