squadron. joining me on the phone, shawn peers, director of the squadron, good to have you here today. welcome. welcome. it s our pleasure. tell me about. we ve seen amazing video of you at work. you went up on thursday. what did the storm look like then and what can you tell us? we ve been following irene since we picked her up 55 west all the way through the u.s. virgin islands. on thursday we were over the central bahamas as she started to gain in intensity. a category 3 back then. one thing that we noticed, it had an extremely large diameter.