Eye on the skies: Coast Guard to protect the city on Super Bowl Sunday

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- While everyone soaks up the Super Bowl and the halftime show at NRG Stadium, there's a whole team of men and women that'll be protecting the skies above them.

That includes the U.S. Coast Guard.

"An event like this, one of the threats you're most worried about is the aerial threats and anything like that that could happen," said Lt. Dan Crowley.

Sunday, the FAA will activate Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs). In laymen's terms, no fly zones of 30 miles, 10 miles, and one mile from NRG.

Lt. Crowley's team took ABC13 over the city to show their patrol route.

"They (TFRs) really keep anyone that's non-essential from being out. That way as soon as a target pops up and they're monitoring constantly, that isn't authorized to be here, the F16s are ready to scramble on them and intercept them and make sure they're not up to no good," he said.

Crowley said every aircraft with a flight plan has a unique code to get permission to fly through the restricted space.

"Anyone who's operating their own private aircraft should be very familiar with those if they don't want to see an F16 up close," he added.

That also includes the use of drones.

The Coast Guard's role is unique and while helping watch out for anything that's not supposed to be in the air, their biggest role maritime safety.