900 first responders standing by the moment when this storm abates. john? >> talk to me about the storm surge, martin. you did mention that. it could be 10, 12 feet we understand in some parts of the gulf coast. would that be enough to cover for instance where you are? are there low lying area there that are a concern? >> reporter: here we should be all right, assuming it doesn't go above that. so this is about some of the highest area you'll find here. but if you go out on padre island, some of the other islands out here in the barrier areas, you talk 12 feet, that's over some of those areas. so some areas the max is nine feet, so you are clearly going to have large areas totally inundated with water. the difficulty is, as most of that water falls from the sky,