Emergency officials in Alaska are praising coastal residents’ calm response to an overnight tsunami warning triggered by a 7.9 magnitude earthquake. The temblor struck just after midnight about 170 miles southeast of Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska. Residents in Seward, a popular stop for cruise ships, lined up in the dark to drive along the only road out of town.

Crews in Montecito, Calif., used bulldozers and heavy equipment Monday to clear U.S. 101 of mud and debris still several feet deep nearly a week after flooding and mudslides devastated the picturesque coastal community. Officials hoped to have the highway open by now, but the water didn’t drain from the lowest sections until Sunday.

Officials in Montecito, Calif., struggled Friday to pinpoint the exact number of people still missing after Tuesday’s flash flooding and mudslides. “It’s a constantly moving number,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown told the Los Angeles Times. Late Thursday, officials pegged the number of missing at 43, after earlier in the day saying only eight people remained unaccounted for.

Search and rescue crews in Montecito, Calif., continue to slog through mud and debris hoping to find survivors from Tuesday’s storm. Eight people remain missing, and 17 are confirmed dead, according to Santa Barbara County officials. Despite warnings ahead of the storm, few residents of the tony community north of Los Angeles evacuated. Officials on Thursday dismissed criticism of their decision not to activate cellphone alerts until after the storm had already started.

California officials on Thursday closed a section of U.S. 101, the freeway that runs along the Pacific coast, as wildfires scorching the region jumped across the road and raced up neighboring hillsides. The Southern California fires have destroyed nearly 200 homes and buildings so far and prompted evacuation orders for tens of thousands of residents. On Wednesday night, 7,000 residents of the Ventura County resort town of Ojai scrambled to escape flames whipped up by nearly hurricane-force winds.

SANTA ROSA, Calif.—As newly married and newly saved hippies, my in-laws once lost their few possessions in a flood that submerged the tree house they built and lived in on an Oregon communal property. They have mostly laughed about this, only wishing sometimes they had retrieved more than one washed-out wedding photo.

Search crews in Sonoma County, Calif., are combing through the rubble of burned out homes in search of those still missing. Although the list of residents unaccounted for dwindled as evacuees checked in with friends and family, officials are still trying to track down 88 people. Sonoma County Sheriff Robert Giordano on Monday said he expects searchers will find at least some of them in their burned-out homes.