Dramatic video captured the moment panicked passengers ran for their lives aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship hit by a freak storm — which sent deck furniture flying as the vessel prepared to leave a Florida port.

The Independence of the Seas was about to embark on a voyage from Port Canaveral to the Bahamas about 4 p.m. June 16 when heavy rain and violent winds slammed the 15-deck, 1,112-foot-long vessel.