Sedalia Family Stuck on Cruise
The Carnival Triumph cruise ship is slowly returning to Mobile, Alabama after a fire erupted on the ship, causing it to lose all power.Carnival Cruise Lines says the Triumph’s nearly 3,000 passengers should be back on land sometime Thursday. They have been adrift off the Yucatan Peninsula since Sunday morning. Since then, tug boats have been pulling the ship back to the Gulf Coast.Aboard the ship are a Sedalia mother and daughter, Stephanie and Hannah Kolasky. The Kolaskys’ family says each day they are seas has brought more suffering. Jim Van Horn had planned to spend Valentine’s Day celebrating something special with his granddaughter, Hannah.”She won’t remember it but certainly there will be people that will remind her of her second birthday,” he said.Her second birthday will be spent at sea, five days after she was supposed to home from a Caribbean cruise.”I’ve just been worried sick,” Van Horn said. “I haven’t slept. I’ve just been wondering what the world is going on and when will I really see her again.”The cruise company says a fire on board stalled the ship Sunday due to a problem with the alternator. A report released Wednesday shows the ship was delayed recently because of a problem with the propulsion.Hannah and her mom, Stephanie, were on the Triumph for a family wedding. The Kolaskys and 3,000 others are stranded without power or water and apparently way four hours for cucumber sandwiches.Since the ordeal happened, Van Horn has only talked with Stephanie once.”I found out Monday things were not very good,” he said. “I was concerned about diapers of all things but she said there were a few on board. And that smell, the odor, the sanitation in general. I’m sure has become a problem and that’s something we’re not hearing from Carnival.”Carnival has said all passengers are well and no one was injured during the fire. The company also says it is handling getting everyone home tomorrow. The reunion cannot come soon enough for Van Horn.”Like most grandfathers, I will shove my daughter out of the way to get to my granddaughter and wrap my arms around her,” he said.Carnival Cruise Lines released a statement to ABC 17 News Wednesday evening detailing the enormity of the effort to get the travelers home. The company has reserved 1,500 rooms in New Orleans and others will be bussed back to Galveston, Texas to retrieve their cars. The passengers will also get free trips home, $500, and a free cruise.More than 1,000 crew members also work on the Triumph. This incident is not the first high-profile problem for Carnival Cruise Lines. The Costa Concordia crash last year that killed 32 passengers and crew members near Italy was a Carnival-owned ship. In 2010, the Carnival Splendor lost power after a similar engine room fire. It drifted off the coast of Mexico in the Pacific Ocean for three days before the ship and its 4,500 passengers and crews were towed back to San Diego.
