Photo: Carnival cruise ship passengers Angelina Diaz, left, and Caridad Rivera get soaked by a large wave as they walk along the Western Esplanade at Nassau's harbour, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2007.

Forecasters projected the storm would emerge over water Wednesday near Cuba's Cayo Coco resort area and head northeast toward the Bahamas. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami warned people in southeast Florida to closely watch the storm's development.

Emergency officials reported between 22 and 36 people dead Tuesday night, but estimates varied because of difficulties reaching or communicating with remote areas on the battered island of Hispaniola, which is shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Early Tuesday evening, a Dominican emergency commission spokesman revised the death toll in the country upward to at least 30. The official, Luis Luna Paulino, did not release specifics of the deaths, and earlier in the day acknowledged miscalculating the toll.

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"The rains continue to fall and we fear for several families," said Sergio Vargas, a merengue star and Dominican congressman who represents Villa Altagracia, a small town north of the capital of Santo Domingo.

At least six were killed in Haiti, including two women washed away by a river in the town of Gantier, said U.N. peacekeeping mission spokesman Mamadou Bah. Red Cross volunteers said a 3-year-old boy named Ismael Villard drowned as his family tried to rescue him from a raging river in the neighborhood of Duvivier.

Noel's outer bands were still pounding the island Tuesday evening even as the center of the sluggish storm chugged away from Hispaniola, which is made vulnerable to flash floods by its many denuded hillsides.

In the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, thousands slogged through waist-high water that turned streets into brown rivers, carrying their last remaining possessions as they fled deluged shacks and makeshift homes.

Refugees were brought by the truckload to the dense seaside slum of Cite Soleil, where they were packed into two schools and given food by volunteers.

Marcina Jean, 45, fought through a pack of women to get crackers for her four children, ages 6 through 9. She said they had spent all of Monday and much of Tuesday trapped on their home's roof.

"I will stay here until things are calm," Jean said.

About 2,000 people were evacuated from homes from the southern coastal city of Jacmel, where at least 150 residents were stranded on rooftops. Officials said bad weather prevented helicopters from reaching them by air.

In Cuba, the government said about 1,000 homes had suffered damage, 2,000 people had been evacuated from low-lying areas across the island and schools were closed for several thousand students.'

Bahamian authorities closed most government offices and lines formed at grocery stores and gas stations in Nassau, the capital. Rain from the outer bands of the storm forced tourists to cover themselves in trash bags or huddle for shelter in doorways of the city's colonial downtown.

"We're expecting a lot of rain and for conditions here to deteriorate starting tonight," Jeffrey Simmons, deputy director of the Department of Meteorology in the Bahamas, said Tuesday.

At 8 p.m. ET, Noel was centered about 25 miles southwest of Camaguey, Cuba, and was moving northwest at about 4 mph.

Maximum sustained winds were 40 mph, down from 60 mph earlier.

Contributing: Associated Press writers Jonathan M. Katz in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Will Weissert in Havana, Jessica Robertson in Nassau, Bahamas and David McFadden in San Juan, Puerto Rico contributed to this report.

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www.usatoday.com/weather/storms/hurricanes/2007-10-30-ts-noel_N.htm