rockaway beach right on the boardwalk it no longer exists. when we were down there we knew it was going to be bad we could tell from the direction of the wind and what was to come. that was not a safe neighborhood to be in. we were able to get out just in time. the storm surge flooding was just coming in and of course now we are getting reports of the fires there, the complete devastation some of the neighborhoods along the water. george, put the flood in perspective for us? how does this compare to other storms we have seen? >> the easiest one to compare it to would be eirene. i was here in new york for irene last year. this is much much worse than irene. much larger storm. not necessarily a stronger storm but because it is so large it has this tremendous amount of energy with it. all of that energy can do quite a bit of damage. when the sun comes up today we are going to get a good idea as to the real full extent of what