A St. Augustine woman was on a cruise ship in Alaska when a severe thunderstorm caused a frightening situation for passengers.
Passengers on the Celebrity Edge cruise ship, like Tena Crook and her husband, were ready to head to their excursions on Monday afternoon.
“The weather was gorgeous when we docked, and we didn’t disembark right away,” she said. “We were watching the weather change.”
But then strong winds from a severe thunderstorm caused the mooring lines that held the ship in place while it was docked to snap, and Crook captured the moment on video.
The captain issued a code “echo” to alert crew members to jump into gear to stop the vessel from hitting any other cruise boats as it started to drift away.
Crook talked to other passengers who were on the side of the ship that could have collided with other vessels.
“It was nerve-racking,” she said. “I will say that they did get the engines powered up quickly. And they turned those suckers on, and they stopped the ship and everything was right. It took another four hours for them to get redocked, but they did a great job. They would come on and about every 45 minutes or so and give us a status update.”
The storm only lasted a few minutes.
The cruise line also refunded everyone for their missed excursions.
The last Severe Thunderstorm Warning that was issued by the NWS Juneau office came almost six years ago, according to Fox Weather.
