can and we will hope for the best as mom likes to say. we will be covering this very, very closely. as we always do at cnn. in fact, jim acosta takes over our coverage right now in the cnn newsroom. jim, take it away. thanks, guys, very much. good morning, everybody. it is almost here. hurricane irene is curving closer and closer to tens of millions of people. waves and wind already kicking up and the first rains will soak the southeast today. this is a big storm. hundreds of miles across and even from space, it is a monster. an astronaut on the international space station called the view terrifying. we have crews deployed up and down the east coast. reynolds wolf is in kill dils hill, north carolina and john zarrella is north of there. then candy crowley in long island and mary snow and jacqui jeras. reynolds, they are bracing for a direct hit, aren t they? they certainly are. one of the most troubling things about this err area is the how it s susceptible to the