Disaster Victims

Federal officials on Tuesday announced a new national shelter system to help locate temporary housing for victims of hurricanes and other natural disasters. The shelter system is a key part of preparations for hurricane season, which begins June 1. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Craig Fugate, the new director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, called for the public to help prepare for storms, mostly by devising family evacuation plans.

Pamela Phoenix had five seconds to flee her home of 30 years where she'd raised her two daughters. That was more time than many here got. She threw her handbag into the car and tracked the onrushing bush fire in her rear-view mirror: "A fireball chasing me," as she recalled it. Although Phoenix made it out, many of her neighbors in the Kinglake region, tucked into the Great Dividing Range northeast of Melbourne, did not.

Here among sugar beet fields and roadside signs advertising buffalo meat, the Red River has carved a path of destruction. Across the river in North Dakota, Fargo, a city of 90,000, is bracing for a potentially devastating flood. But in Oakport Township -- population 1,600 -- icy runoff has submerged dikes and smashed windows. The river banged against doors and frothed off streets, stranding residents who refused to flee. The tops of mailboxes and cars poke from floodwater like buoys.

Rescue workers searched desperately into the early-morning hours today for dozens of missing Indonesians after a dam burst just outside the capital and a wall of mud and water killed more than 60 people as they slept. "My prediction is we still have many people trapped in there, so the death toll will rise," said Rustam Pakaya, chief of the Health Ministry's crisis center. "I think the death toll can reach 100," he said. The Associated Press reported that at least 69 were dead.

Denise Cutbirth and her three teen daughters, two Australian shepherds and a chinchilla named Chinny were on their third day in a two-bedroom suite at Motel 6, which they have taken to calling Noah's Ark. David Caffo and his partner, Thom Zimerle, opted for the luxury of the Biltmore Hotel, which knocked its rate down to $250 a night for fire refugees, more than half off the usual cost. Other than the steep discount, it was hard to tell that anything was out of the ordinary.

Until the evacuation orders were lifted at 10 a.m. Sunday, Paul Reide held out hope that his home on tidy, tree-lined Montrose Place in the foothills north of downtown Santa Barbara had survived last week's devastating Jesusita fire. Less than 30 minutes later, the tall, silver-haired retired salesman stood forlornly on a block of concrete that was once the foyer of the 3,000-square-foot tri-level home he liked to call "a quiet little paradise."

The U.S. military trucked in supplies and marshaled helicopters and Navy ships as the Philippines struggled with the aftermath of back-to-back storms that have left more than 600 dead. Filipino rescuers said they still hoped to find more survivors in the stricken north of the country, but Saturday they retrieved only bodies. With roads blocked and bridges washed away, the Philippine government's resources have been stretched thin. Officials have asked U.S. troops in the country for an annual military exercise to extend relief operations.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other authorities held them up as examples of irresponsible behavior. They were the butt of jokes. But one of the two Big Tujunga Canyon residents who jumped into a hot tub to escape the raging Station fire says they are being unfairly judged. Julius Goff, who suffered serious burns, told The Times that he did not ignore a mandatory evacuation order but instead stayed behind to warn 10 neighbors who did not receive the order to leave. By the time he reached his own house, with plans to get his housemate and get out, the fire had surrounded them.

Mudslides triggered by the punishing rains of a late summer typhoon buried people sleeping in their homes in a remote Taiwanese village and toppled buildings in Taiwan and the Chinese mainland, raising fears that hundreds may have perished. The confirmed death toll from Typhoon Morakot stood at more than 50 early today, including 22 killed in the Philippines, but the numbers are likely to rise significantly as bodies are dug out of the mud. In Wenzhou, an eastern Chinese city, a four-story apartment building collapsed Monday night.

From her home in the high reaches of La Crescenta, Jackie Genofile watched last week as hillsides so recently denuded by fire, and so ripe for collapse, bore the new insult of rain. County officials had cleared debris basins at the foot of canyons. Residents had rigged sandbag-and-chipboard contraptions to block a slide, like burglar bars against nature's intrusion. All that was left was to wait. "Everyone was pretty panicky," Jackie said. "I was a little concerned. I kept waiting and saying, 'OK, if it gets rough, I'll just get in the car and leave.