Irma, the storm moving across the Atlantic Ocean from the coast of Africa, has been upgraded to a category 2 hurricane, according to the National Weather Service.Β
Five days after Harvey first made landfall as the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in 13 years, the now-tropical storm is still pounding parts of Texas and Louisiana with rain.
With time running out, tens of thousands of people fled Friday from the path of an increasingly menacing-looking Hurricane Harvey as it took aim at a wide swath of the Texas Gulf Coast that includes oil refineries, chemical plants and dangerously flood-prone Houston, the nationβs fourth-largest city.