NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A storm brewing in the Caribbean brought the deep-sea effort to plug the ruptured oil well to a near standstill Wednesday just as BP was getting tantalizingly close to going in for the kill.

Work on the relief well — now just days from completion — was suspended, and the cap that has been keeping the oil bottled up since last week may have to be reopened, allowing crude to gush into the sea again for days, said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government’s point man on the crisis.

“This is necessarily going to be a judgment call,” said Allen, who was waiting to see how the storm developed

before deciding whether to order any of the ships and crews stationed some 50 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico to head for safety.

The cluster of thunderstorms passed over Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Wednesday, and forecasters said the system would probably move into the Gulf over the weekend. They gave it a 50 percent chance of becoming a tropical depression or a tropical storm by Friday.