Tropical Storm Erika lashes Caribbean islands and heads for Florida

Tropical Storm Erika lashed Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands with heavy rain and fierce winds on Friday, moving across the Caribbean and apparently heading for the Dominican Republic, northern Haiti and eventually South Florida, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Due to some likely weakening over the Dominican Republic, Erika was no longer forecast to make U.S. landfall as a hurricane. It could still smack the Miami area with sustained winds of 60 miles per hour (97 kph) on Monday, however, before sweeping northward up the Florida peninsula, affecting Orlando's popular theme parks.

The greatest risk was heavy rainfall over northern Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with up to 12 inches (30 cm) in some areas. This could cause "life-threatening flash floods and mud slides," the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.

Emergency officials were searching for several missing people after rain-triggered landslides on the small, mountainous island of Dominica on Thursday, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said in a radio broadcast.

Overflowing rivers and landslides washed away several roads and bridges there, and Tourism Minister Robert Tonge posted photographs and video on Facebook showing widespread flooding in the capital.

For days forecasters have described Erika, the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, as unusually hard to predict due to disruption from wind patterns and its interaction over land, which weakens a storm, and warm water, which provides added energy.

Forecasters now believe a more southerly path will take Erika over the mountainous Dominican Republic and northern Haiti, grazing Cuba's east coast as it regains intensity over warm seas in the Bahamas and the Straits of Florida.

Erika is likely to weaken "and could even dissipate in the next 12 to 24 hours," the hurricane center said.

Earlier forecasts indicated Erika could become the first hurricane to hit Florida since Wilma in October 2005.