ABC7'S Melanie Woodrow spoke to Rio Vista Resident Alexus Sheppard Monday via Skype from London.
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RELATED: Novato woman describes chaotic scene aboard disabled cruise ship in Norway
Sheppard took the widely seen video of the chaos aboard the "Viking Sky" as it encountered violent weather in the North Sea on Saturday.
She said she was sitting in the bar, when suddenly everything went crazy.
"My wine glass was the first glass to break, " Sheppard said. "It fell off the table and crashed onto the floor, everybody laughed."
Sheppard said that shortly after that, the situation got worse and worse very quickly.
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VIDEO: Furniture flies across deck as stranded Norway ship Viking Sky rocks violently
"The furniture started to move, and that's when I started taking the video, saying 'Oh, this is interesting', not often do you get on a ship and the furniture moves around," Sheppard said. "The furniture was moving clear across the ship, running people over, knocking people down, the ceiling started to fall, and it just went down hill from then."
Twenty-eight people were injured during the ordeal that lasted into Sunday morning. One person remains in critical condition.
Sheppard said everyone remained mostly calm, until the captain issued a "mayday."
"That was like getting slapped in the face, " Sheppard said. "Because you don't issue a mayday without there being significant possibility of the ship going down."
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Sheppard said the mayday gave her the chills, and people began screaming and crying.
RELATED: Viking Sky cruise ship returns to Norway port after engine trouble, air evacuations
The situation remains tense for hours.
A team of helicopters airlifted almost 500 of the 900 passengers to safety. Sheppard wasn't among them. She was still onboard by the time tugboats arrived to tow the crippled cruise ship to port.
The Rio Vista resident doesn't think the crew could have handled the situation any better.