the enorm mitt of irene. it's the sustained winds and storm surge that really poses such a problem. the nags head reporting has been extraordinary there from mike seidel from the weather channel on the beach. let's see if we can hook up now with nbc's mark potter also in nags head, jeff. mark, can you hear me? you've been up above where mike seidel is. things don't look like they're getting any better at all? >> reporter: i actually think, alex, they're getting a little bit worse. this may be the strongest wind we've seen so far. that center of the storm is to our southwest and moving so slowly northward as you guys are talking about, and that means now for several hours we have just had this sustained, heavy wind and rain coming at us horizontally. with the storm moving so slowly, we could have hours more of this. i heard mike in his interview a moment ago talking about the trip we took.