Hundreds of thousands of people fled coastal areas in the path of Hurricane Ike on Friday as the storm gathered strength on a collision course with the Texas Gulf Coast, threatening to swamp populous areas around Houston under a massive wave of water.

Ike's eye was over water about 135 kilometers (85 miles) south-southeast of Havana at 5 a.m. Cuba time today, moving west at 20 kph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The system's sustained winds dropped to 130 kilometers per hour as it moved over land, weakening to Category 1, the lowest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity.

Most storm-hardened residents of the Florida Keys stayed put Monday despite day-old instructions to evacuate as a ferocious Hurricane Ike ripped across Cuba and stayed on track to swipe the low-lying island chain.

As of 2:00 a.m. EDT Thursday, Hanna was still a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds near 65 mph. Hanna is located near 23.7 north and 72.4 west or about 325 miles east-southeast of Nassau in the Bahamas.