worked in kabul. but it's also one of the locations where there have been a large crowd growing. the crowd actually had been so big that just a week ago today, last thursday, there was a group of 159 americans who were planning to go from that hotel through the abby gate to get into the airport for evacuation. and the crowd got so big that the u.s. military commander made the decision to actually take several chinook helicopters, land them at the hotel and get americans safely over the crowd so that they wouldn't face the poe tepgs threats of that crowd in there. again, chris, this is all developing. that's what we know about the overall situation right now. >> give us more background, if i can ask, when they put out that warning and telling americans basically stay away from the airport. one of the things they said out of the u.s. embassy was, we have contingency plans in place, however, for emergencies, and they asked them to monitor local media. do we know anything about contingency plans, how prepared they were at the airport if something like this should happen? >> yes.