KINGSTON, Jamaica — The center of Tropical Storm Cristobal was slowly moving away from the Bahamas on Monday, leaving behind flooded communities across a swath of soaked Caribbean islands and resulting in at least three fatalities.

Flight operations were suspended at the main airport in the drenched Turks & Caicos Islands. Government offices and banks were shuttered Monday on the low-lying islands that are highly vulnerable to flooding from heavy rains and storm surge, and authorities said many homes were flooded, especially on North and Middle Caicos islands.

“It is absolutely shocking and horrifying to see people’s lives impacted in this way,” Minister of Border Control and Labor Ricardo Gardiner said in Turks and Caicos, where officials said the hovering storm bands dumped some 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain since Friday.

The storm was moving north-northeastward as it pulled away from the Bahamas archipelago, but it was forecast to curve away from the U.S. East Coast. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said strengthening is expected and Cristobal could become a hurricane on Wednesday as it moves over open waters west of the mid-Atlantic British territory of Bermuda.

In the Bahamas, government meteorologists warned that severe thunderstorms from the storm’s outer bands posed threats Monday to Mayaguana, Acklins and a few other islands and they called for boaters to return to port and residents to stay indoors.

On the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, two Dominican men drowned and two Haitians went missing when they were caught up in waterways swollen by Cristobal’s driving rains. Authorities say they are still searching for the two Haitians missing since late Saturday in Saint Marc, a port town on the country’s west coast.

On Monday, the Turks & Caicos governor’s office reported one storm fatality in the tiny archipelago, saying a body was recovered from floodwaters on the main island of Providenciales.

About 3,600 people were evacuated from communities in the Dominican Republic, according to Jose Manuel Mendez, director of the country’s emergency operations center. More than half returned to their homes by Monday. Some 23 rural communities were marooned over the weekend.

Roughly 640 Haitian families were left temporarily homeless during the passage of the storm, according to Luckecy Mathieu, a civil protection coordinator. At least 28 homes were badly damaged and four others were destroyed, he said.

Last week, the storm soaked islands in the eastern Caribbean and downed power lines in Puerto Rico, leaving more than 20,000 people without power and thousands without water service.

By late Monday afternoon, the hurricane center in Miami reported Cristobal was centered about 670 miles (1,080 kilometers) southwest of Bermuda and was tracking north-northeast near 5 mph (7 kph). It had maximum sustained winds of about 60 mph (95 kph).

Meanwhile in the Pacific, Hurricane Marie was moving northwest as a major Category 4 storm, bringing high waves but no threat of a direct hit to Mexico’s Pacific coast.

The weakening hurricane’s sustained winds were near 135 mph (214 kph) with more weakening expected over the next two days. It was centered about 490 miles (790 kilometers) southwest of the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula.

Swells generated by Marie were affecting the southwestern coast of Mexico and the southern gulf of California. National Hurricane Center forecasters said the swells were expected to reach southern California by Tuesday and were likely to cause “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.”

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David McFadden on Twitter: http://twitter.com/dmcfadd(MGNonline)