most lethal threat from any tropical system. vegetation around here, palm trees, we have lots of pine trees, we re surrounded by a national forest. those trees will come down. they will cover roadways, and it will make it virtually impossible to travel around after the storm passes. not to mention the electricity outages that are going to be a concern for the area. back to you. over 2,000 people there. we hope the number is closer to zero. thank you. we ll check in in the next half hour. diane gallagher is standing by live in panama city beach, the western end of the panhandle. good morning, what are you seeing there? reporter: the good thing, maybe because it s early, but we haven t seen anybody out at this hour. i cannot say the same for when we went to bed last night. there were people walking around with families, checking it out, taking sunset it it s sunset pictures. it s hard to see because it is dark, but the sea is angry. we can see the foam coming up.
let s go there. cnn s diane gallagher is standing by and watching people get ready. reporter: we are in panama city beach. the emergency evacuation actually requires everybody who is here on this beach to be gone by 6:00 our time. so in about an hour people are supposed to be out of here. now the governor did go ahead and deploy an extra 100 members of the highway patrol to help and alleviate with the evacuation process out of the panhandle. on the beach right now we have had a little bit of rain. the wind is just kind of nice and breezy like you would experience any time on the beach. the water isn t that bad either. come this afternoon all of that is going to change. that s why officials here are working to get ever out right now. anticipate traffic of course people leaving out of here. you need to anticipate if you haven t already gotten gas to worry about some of those. on our way in the lines were extremely long, people trying to get gas, people trying to get