The Dominican officials announced that the tropical storm Olga drenched the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in the early hours of Wednesday and left at least seven people dead as it headed west towards Haiti and Cuba.

On Tuesday, Olga has hit northern coast of Puerto Rico overnight with winds up to 45 mph, causing blackouts leaving 76,000 people without power.

Around 7 a.m. its center was over the water, 45 miles east of Cabo Engano in the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican daily Listin Diario quoted Governor Jose Izquierdo, who said some 2,500 houses were affected by the floods in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island with Haiti. Many homes were said to have been totally destroyed.

Some communities were isolated from the rest of the country, and in the Dominican town of Santiago - some 250 kilometres north of the capital Santo Domingo - there was severe flooding after the authorities ordered that large quantities of water be let off from a dam.

According to NASA, at 10 a.m. EST, Olga was located near latitude 19.1 north and longitude 75.2 west or about 75 miles (120 km) south of Guantanamo, Cuba. She was moving westward near a speedy 23 mph (37 km/hr) and this motion is expected to continue. However, Olga could dissipate as a tropical cyclone later today. Further, with dry air and strong shear forecast over the northwestern Caribbean significant regeneration there is not expected.

Cuban authorities were on alert as the storm approached, although it got weaker through with wind speeds of up to 60 kilometres an hour in its centre.

Olga started to develop Monday, two weeks after the end of the official hurricane season on the Caribbean.

Photo Credit: NOLA