HAVANA — Cuba evacuated 180,000 people amid fears Sunday that Tropical Storm Elsa could unleash heavy flooding after battering several Caribbean islands, killing three people.

The Cuban government had opened shelters and moved to protect sugar cane and cocoa crops ahead of the storm. Most of those evacuated went to relatives’ homes, while some people sheltered at government facilities. Hundreds living in mountainous areas took refuge in natural caves that had been prepared for the emergency.

The storm’s next target was Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in 15 counties, including in Miami-Dade County where the high-rise condominium building collapsed June 24.

On Sunday, Elsa was located about 65 miles west of Cabo Cruz, Cuba, and was heading northwest at 15 mph. It had maximum sustained winds of about 60 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The center said the storm is expected to gradually weaken as it moves across Cuba on Monday. “After Elsa emerges over the Florida Straits and the southeastern Gulf of Mexico, some slight restrengthening is possible,” it said.

The storm killed one person in St. Lucia, according to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency. Meanwhile, a boy, 15, and a woman, 55, died Saturday in separate events in the Dominican Republic after walls collapsed on them, according to a statement from the Emergency Operations Center.

Elsa was a Category 1 hurricane up until Saturday morning, causing widespread damage in several eastern Caribbean islands Friday as the first hurricane of the Atlantic season.