A crippled cruise ship described by people on board as a nightmare of filth limped Thursday toward dry land ? and finally relief for passengers who say they are exhausted after days without sufficient food, power or working bathrooms.
Helicopter footage showed the ship in the open Gulf of Mexico, with passengers holding giant signs reading ?SOS? and ?Help! Get us to Eunice, LA.?
Extending the agony for the more than 4,000 people aboard, Carnival said its Triumph cruise liner would be towed in to Mobile, Ala., between 9 p.m. and midnight ET. Earlier estimates had put the ship in port about six hours earlier. Four tugboats were dragging the vessel to land, Carnival said.
A fire in the engine room Sunday disabled the ship about 150 miles off the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. The flames were put out without any injuries, but passengers have described the conditions since as sweltering and unsanitary.
?Pipes are busting, I know the sewer is backing up, and water is in the cabins, and it?s just a nightmare,? Jamie Baker told TODAY on Thursday in a telephone interview from aboard the ship.
She said that there were lines of four hours for food ? meals that are sometimes no more than a tomato slice on bread ? and that passengers have to use vanity trash cans for toilets, emptying the contents into bags in the hall.
Baker said she and her friends slept with life vests one night because the ship was listing and they feared that it would capsize. Baker also said she saw one woman pass out.
?Like Katrina in the Dome, except it?s afloat,? Baker said.
Carnival has disputed passenger accounts and said that crews are doing the best they can, although Carnival has confirmed that fewer than two dozen public toilets are working. Baker told TODAY that the crew has been ?phenomenal.?
The disabled ship was going to be towed to the Mexican port of Progreso, but strong winds pushed it 90 miles north, and Carnival decided to tow the ship to Mobile instead.
Passengers will get $500, reimbursement for the cruise and a credit for a future cruise, Carnival announced earlier this week. Carnival has also canceled its cruises through mid-April.
Passengers aboard the Triumph are being given the option of taking a bus to a hotel in New Orleans, to taking a bus directly to Houston or Galveston, Texas. Many of them will have long drives home from there.
The ship left Galveston a week ago and was to return there Monday.
Mary Poret of Lufkin, Texas, was in Mobile waiting for her preteen daughter to disembark. The daughter took the cruise with her father and has been talking to Poret by phone.
?She was scared that she would never get to see me again,? Poret said. ?It?ll be the happiest moment of my life, probably, up until now. Except maybe holding her when she was born.?
Lani Corbett, whose daughter, Shannon Dobbs, is on the ship with coworkers, set up a Facebook pageso friends and family of passengers could get and share information.
?She sounded scared, angry, exhausted, miserable,? said Corbett, who last spoke to her daughter Monday afternoon. "She was OK, but it was basically pandemonium.?
By Thursday morning, the page had more than 1,300 ?likes.?
?People are thankful I set it up,? she told NBC News. ?While we know everyone is safe, we still have the right to be scared for them.?
Lindsey Peterson, whose parents are aboard the Triumph, said she has heard conflicting reports.
?Carnival is telling me that all the passengers are safe, the boat has 40 percent power, they have one dining room working with hot food and hot coffee, that the sleeping conditions are fine,? Peterson said. ?Everything that Carnival has told me thus far has not matched up with what my mom has said.?
Tess Hester, whose daughter is on the ship, received this message: ?This is honestly the worst experience ever. I?m not sure I can take two more days at sea with no food, water or power.?
One of the biggest concerns crew members will have until the ship docks is the potential for disease, particularly norovirus, which causes vomiting and diarrhea, Jay Herring, a former senior officer for Carnival Cruise Lines, told The Associated Press.
?Housekeeping, others are probably working double shifts to keep the mess clean and wipe down and sanitize all the common areas,? said Herring, who worked for Carnival from 2002 to 2004 and spent four months on the Triumph.
Carnival CEO Gerry Cahill has apologized to guests and families for ?this very difficult situation.? The cruise line has reserved 1,500 hotel rooms for passengers in Mobile and New Orleans, and 20 chartered flights will take passengers to Houston.
The Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the engine-room fire. The incident comes more than two years after another Carnival ship, the Splendor, was crippled at sea by a fire in the engine room.
The Triumph has 3,143 passengers and 1,086 crew on board.
NBC News' Joe Myxter and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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