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Trop­i­cal Storm Melis­sa was near­ly sta­tion­ary in the cen­tral Caribbean on Fri­day as fore­cast­ers warned it could strength­en and swipe Ja­maica as a pow­er­ful hur­ri­cane and dump a stag­ger­ing amount of rain — up to 35 inch­es (89 cen­time­ters) — on south­west Haiti, where they warned of cat­a­stroph­ic flood­ing and land­slides.

The er­rat­ic storm was ex­pect­ed to drop co­pi­ous rain on Ja­maica and the south­ern re­gions of Haiti and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic. At least three peo­ple were killed in Haiti, and one per­son was killed and one re­port­ed miss­ing in Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

“These heavy rains are just go­ing to sit over one area for sev­er­al days,” said Jamie Rhome, deputy di­rec­tor at the U.S. Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter.