93 Turn to Red Cross for Help After Flood : Disasters: Sixty-five people remain at an emergency shelter. A funeral is held for an Ojai Valley couple who died when mud engulfed their bedroom.

Nearly a week after a flash flood killed three people, wiped out a recreational vehicle park and drove scores of homeless people from their camps in the Ventura River bed, about 65 people remained at a Ventura County emergency shelter Monday night.

In all, American Red Cross officials said Monday, 93 people have asked for food, clothing, sleeping bags or shelter.

“We’ll remain open as long as there is a need,” said Jackie Wright, a Red Cross spokeswoman. The Red Cross is running both the shelter, set up at De Anza Middle School, and an emergency aid center at the Ventura County Fairgrounds.

Meanwhile Monday, about 500 mourners attended the funeral of an Ojai Valley couple, Michele (Shelly) Bovee, 27, and Glenn Queen, 30, who suffocated in a mudslide Wednesday. Their stillborn infant, named Wesley, who was delivered after Bovee’s death, was cradled in her arms.

“That’s the way it should be,” said Bovee’s sister, Julie Bovee Freeman, who came from Iowa to attend the service. “He’s perfect and he’s beautiful.”

The couple died after a week of rain loosened the earth behind their Encino Lane home north of Ventura, sending a wall of mud, rocks and trees crashing through their bedroom wall as they lay sleeping.

The rains turned the normally trickling Ventura River into a raging brown torrent that tore apart both the makeshift camps that homeless people had built in the riverbed and the expensive motor homes and trailers parked at the Ventura Beach RV Resort at the river’s mouth.

“There are two kinds of people who have come here,” said Stuart Condron, a volunteer who was working Monday at the Red Cross emergency center at the fairgrounds.

“There are those with motor homes from the trailer park, and they pretty much took care of themselves. Then there are the river-bottom people who were pretty much in a mess even before the flood. They are the ones who need the help.”

Most of the requests at the center were for food, sleeping bags, clothing and shelter, said Betty Jimenez, the supervisor of the Red Cross center. She said most of those requesting shelter were sent to the De Anza school, while other types of aid were delivered on the spot.

Two dispossessed residents of the river bottom were pleased with the help they received at the fairgrounds center. “We were totally wiped out,” said one of the men, who declined to give his name. He said the pair had lived in a cabin they built a quarter of a mile north of the Ventura Freeway but were not sure it had survived the flood. Deep mud has prevented them from making an inspection, he said.

Each was given a voucher redeemable for food at grocery stores. And each received a new sleeping bag. “We’re extremely happy with the help,” the man said.

At De Anza, classes resume today, but the emergency shelter set up in the gymnasium will remain open tonight, said Bill Swingle, a Red Cross official at the shelter.

One of the flood victims housed at the shelter, Alan Mosher, said he had lost everything. “My TV, VCR, clothes and dog were in the trailer,” said Mosher, 33, who had been staying at the RV park for only a week when the storm arrived. His trailer was uninsured, he said.

At the shelter, Mosher said, the Red Cross has provided him with food and medicine for his asthma.

“If it weren’t for the Red Cross, I wouldn’t be here,” Mosher said.

David Lee, a river-bottom resident staying at De Anza, said the city should provide a permanent shelter for the homeless.

The other fatality in the flash flood, James Butler, 32, was a homeless river-bottom resident who suffocated in mud, according to the county medical examiner’s office. His family in New Jersey has told local officials that they cannot afford a funeral, and his body will be released today for cremation at public expense, officials said Monday.

During Monday’s services for Bovee and Queen at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Ojai, the brightly lit sanctuary was filled with songs that ranged from “Amazing Grace” to “You Are My Sunshine,” a favorite of Bovee’s.

Whitney Ashley Queen, 3, Glenn Queen’s daughter, came to her father’s funeral holding her grandmother with one hand and clutching a bouquet of red roses in the other. “These are for Daddy,” she said.

Her maternal grandmother, Janet Bracken of Granada Hills, said Whitney did not realize how close she had come to losing her own life.

Whitney had been with her father and Bovee the night before the mud and rocks crashed through the couple’s bedroom wall. Often the little girl would stay an extra night with her father before he returned Whitney to her mother’s home in Granada Hills. But on Tuesday, Queen’s mother had insisted that her son return Whitney to her mother’s home as scheduled.

“If she hadn’t insisted, my little granddaughter would have been with them,” Bracken said. “We would have three caskets here today.”

Times correspondent Patrick McCartney contributed to this story.

Rainfall From 11 Days of Storms

An 11-day series of storms that began Feb. 5 significantly boosted rainfall in Ventura County. Chart shows rainfall for various locations since 5 p.m. Feb. 5, followed by total rainfall since Oct. 1, the official start of the rainy season. The third column shows normal rainfall totals through Feb. 17. Figures were provided by the Ventura County Flood Control District.

Rainfall Rainfall Normal rainfall Location since Feb. 5 since Oct. 1 to date Camarillo 7.95 13.50 8.68 Casitas Dam 10.7 22.22 15.27 El Rio 4.53 14.43 9.76 Fillmore 10 19.24 12.36 Moorpark 2.76 15.05 9.44 Ojai 12 20.74 13.75 Upper Ojai 18.4 25.36 14.87 Oxnard 6.54 14.09 9.41 Piru 5.75 17.71 11.05 Port Hueneme N/A N/A 9.23 Santa Paula 9.80 18.41 11.53 Simi Valley 8.82 17.34 9.11 Thousand Oaks 9.53 18.09 9.84 Ventura Govt. Center 8.62 15.15 9.10