JOHNS: The U.S. military is preparing for Hurricane Irene to make landfall. CNN's Chris Lawrence joins us from the Pentagon with the latest. Chris, what are you hearing?</s>CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Joe, the military has now designated about 18 helicopters that FEMA will be able to use in search and rescue operations after the storm. Those helicopters will also be used for surveillance to take a look at the damage and look for people who may be in trouble. The military has also designated about three bases in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and also Fort Bragg that are sort of incident response centers, where they'll be working with FEMA. Fort Bragg, for example, they've already got more than 200 trucks filled with food, water, medical supplies, things that they can get out to people very quickly from those areas. The military is also trying to stay out of the way of this storm. The Air Force, moving some of its planes to Ohio. And the Navy has sent about 38 of its battleships out to sea now. That's about 13 percent of the entire deployable battle fleets. So a sizeable portion is now out to sea about 300 miles away. They are going to try to ride out the storm there and then swing back around after it passes -- Joe.</s>JOHNS: So that's the idea, 300 miles out away from the eye of the storm. Thanks so much, Chris, for all that information. And we'll be checking back with you.</s>LAWRENCE: Sure.</s>JOHNS: A hurricane hunter plane flying directly above the storm. We're going to talk to that hurricane hunter and see what it looks like from the sky.
U.S. Military on Defense Against Irene