"Tropical Storm Olga Kills 22 in Caribbean"

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - The death toll from Tropical Storm Olga neared two dozen on Thursday after flash floods killed at least 19 people in the Dominican Republic, where 35,000 people were forced to flee their homes, Dominican officials said.

The rare December tropical storm, which disintegrated into a mass of thunderstorms late on Wednesday, killed two people, a woman and a 3-year-old boy, Haiti, which shares the Caribbean island Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.
Olga's torrential rains also were blamed earlier for mudslides that killed a man in Puerto Rico.

The remnants of the year's 15th tropical storm skirted Jamaica to the north, raced through the Cayman Islands and were expected to move into the Gulf of Mexico between Cuba and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on Saturday.

The majority of the Dominican deaths -- at least 17 -- were people drowned when a river burst its banks and flooded parts of Santiago, the Dominican Republic's second-largest city, 110 miles (176 km) north of Santo Domingo, the capital...

Olga formed in the Virgin Islands on Monday, 10 days after the official end of the six-month Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season. Tropical storms feed on warm seas, so December storms are unusual.

It was the 17th named storm to form in the region in the month of December since record-keeping began in 1851, the US National Hurricane Center said.