U.S. National Hurricane Center

As Hurricane Irma buzz-sawed its way up Florida's Gulf Coast, it looked for several hours like the heavily populated Tampa Bay area could face catastrophic wind damage and flooding from the first major storm to roar ashore there in 96 years.

Before crashing into Florida, Hurricane Irma set all sorts of records for brute strength, flattening islands in the Caribbean and swamping the Florida Keys.

Hurricane Irma battered the Turks and Caicos Islands early Friday as the fearsome Category 5 storm continued a rampage through the Caribbean that has killed at least 11 people, with Florida in its sights.

Shifting forecasts raised the threat to the Southeast from fierce Hurricane Irma and prompted emergency declarations in the Carolinas and coastal Georgia, including areas that haven't suffered a direct hit from a major hurricane in more than a century.

Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis says his government has ordered a mandatory evacuation of islands in the southern part of the island chain because of Hurricane Irma.

A hurricane warning has been issued for a section of Texas' Gulf Coast as Tropical Storm Harvey approaches.

Tropical Depression Emily is moving out over the Atlantic early Tuesday, a day after slogging across the Florida peninsula, where it brought drenching rain and power outages.

Hurricane Fernanda has continued to build strength in the Pacific Ocean but is heading farther out to sea and does not pose any immediate threat to land.

Hurricane Eugene is gradually weakening as it begins moving over cooler waters in the eastern Pacific.

The retiring chief of the hurricane specialist unit at the National Hurricane Center in Miami says further cuts to tropical weather research will undermine recent improvements in hurricane intensity forecasts.