All eyes are on Hurricane Irma as it rampages through the Caribbean, but it’s not alone. Tropical storms Jose and Katia strengthened Wednesday afternoon, bringing the number of hurricanes churning in the Atlantic basin to three.

A tropical wave in the eastern Atlantic Ocean strengthened into a tropical storm Wednesday morning and has been officially named Irma.
Forecasters from the National Hurricane Center said Irma poses no immediate threat to any land but is expected to strengthen as it continues its westward track across the Atlantic.

Tropical Storm Chris could become a hurricane today. All the while sitting not too far off the U.S. East Coast. Don’t panic.

Alabama officials, like state and local leaders around the country, expect disaster recovery costs to continue to grow as people live in vulnerable areas and climate change increases the frequency and intensity of natural disasters.

Authorities are working to figure out what caused a boat to explode and catch fire at the Harborage at Ashley Marina Monday morning.

Forecasters say the Atlantic could see another above-normal hurricane season in 2017. Forecasters predicted 11-17 named storms, five to nine hurricanes and two to four hurricanes could be "major" with sustained winds of at least 111 mph.

A morning break-in and fire has temporarily closed the Regal Beagle bar at 567 Main St. in Indian Orchard, as investigators from the Springfield Bomb and Arson Squad and State Police troopers attached to the State Fire Marshal's Office comb through the debris.

A propane tank inside a U-Haul truck exploded Wednesday, causing residents nearby to think there was another earthquake in the area.

A Spartanburg County school bus driver was being called a hero after her bus caught fire Tuesday morning. Spartanburg County School District Five Superintendent Scott Turner said 56 students were on the bus when the fire broke out just after 7 a.m.

Insurance companies have paid out more than $159.3 million on nearly 18,200 claims from Hurricane Matthew in Beaufort County since the October storm, Ray Farmer, the S.C. Department of Insurance director, said Monday.

Hurricane Matthew, which is estimated to have caused $150 million in economic losses in Canada alone and killed more than 600 in the Western hemisphere, set several records, Impact Forecasting LLC said in a report released Monday.

Five children were injured when a strong wind picked up two bounce houses at a church carnival in South Carolina on Saturday, sending one of the inflatables into a tree and the other into a power line, authorities said.

It’s an all-too-frequent occurrence on Columbia’s crowded downtown streets, especially when the University of South Carolina is in session: A traffic light turns green and the car in front of you doesn’t move.

People sparked most US wildfires in recent decades, causing longer fire seasons and increasing the amount of scorched earth, according to a new study published Monday. Researchers found that humans caused 84 percent -- or four out of five -- of the total 1.5 million wildfires studied between 1992 and 2012.



In addition, human actions tripled the length of the fire season during those two decades and were responsible for 44 percent of the total acreage burned, researchers reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

United Technologies Corp’s (UTX.N) Carrier unit expanded a recall of some air conditioners and heat pumps as their power cord plugs can overheat, posing a fire risk, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Thursday.