Moved by news coverage of New Orleans' refugees, Joel Otterstrom, CEO of MyTechSupport Inc., enlisted Web site developers Eran Greenberg and John Peterson last week to create what has become a prime conduit for Americans offering their homes to desperate strangers: http://www.Katrinahousing.org.

The trio began working on the site the afternoon of Aug. 31, finishing it 1 a.m. the following day. Then, they called Paul Wilson, a marketing associate, with a plea that he take over both the operation of KatrinaHousing.org and its spin-off 800-917-3492 call center.

Wilson, also eager to help Katrina victims, jumped at the chance.

"We realized how far away [1,500 miles] we all were. Not everyone can just go to Louisiana or Mississippi, or donate lots of money, but we wanted to do our part - and here was a way to do it," Wilson said Thursday.

When he arrived at the MyTechSupport offices, the site was just hours old and already 10 homeowners had logged on and registered housing for refugees. By nightfall Sept. 1, it was 800; a day later, offers topped the 8,000 mark.

By Thursday afternoon, the site - bolstered by a cluster of network servers donated by Colorado-based Verio Inc. - was handling more than 1 million hits per day, was approaching 110,000 offered beds and had found housing for nearly 3,400 refugees.

KatrinaHousing.org's call center, staffed by up to 30 volunteers, had topped 1,000 inquiries. For several days, Zions Bank volunteers helped take calls. MyFamily.com, the Internet's leading commercial genealogy service, joined the effort Thursday, Wilson said.

KatrinaHousing.org is far from being the only independent, disaster-related Web site springing up to fill perceived gaps in information left by official sources.

A Google search for "Katrina housing offers" generated 1.05 million hits Thursday, among them myriad new Web sites with names such as MoveOn.org's HurricaneHousing.org, The911site.com, Hurricane.earthlink.net and even KatrinaHome.org - a site set up by Rod Edwards, a self-described "amateur Web designer" from Winnipeg, Canada.

As of Thursday, Wilson estimated 15 or more housing-related sites had come under KatrinaHousing.org's umbrella, while many more have linked to the Utah site's database.

KatrinaHousing.org also is partnering with KatrinaCaravan.org, a site overseeing volunteered transportation for refugees. The Utah site's link to the thousands of homeless at the Astrodome is through another Web partner, KatrinaUnited.org.

Wilson says KatrinaHousing.org could extend well beyond the current disaster and its aftermath.

"We are working on getting another organization to place people in the long term," he said. "We've been in talks with [U.S.] Housing and Urban Development and FEMA both to see if this is something they want to take over. They said they'd get back to us later."

While KatrinaHousing.org has focused on matching homeowners with the hurricane's homeless, other Web sites that seek to track the displaced, the missing and the dead have blossomed.

Some relief agencies complain of the growing, confusing array.

The Red Cross believes its Family Links Registry (http://www.familylinks.icrc.org), previously used during civil wars abroad and the Asian tsunami, can best perform that role.

However, Mariann Geyer, CEO of the Greater Salt Lake Chapter of the Red Cross, is unwilling to discourage any dissemination of disaster data that could help ease a refugee's mind.

"We're looking at them as offering a very, very wide range of opportunities," she said. "The [hurricane survivors] at Camp Williams are utilizing those sites, along with ours, with the aid of our caseworkers."

Other Katrina-related business developments

* An estimated 10,000 workers who lost their jobs because of the hurricane filed for unemployment benefits last week, the first wave of what likely will be hundreds of thousands of displaced workers seeking benefits. The estimate was based on spot checks with claims offices in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and neighboring states such as Texas who have agreed to accept benefit applications from workers relocated from the hurricane areas. Overall, a total of 319,000 newly laid off workers filed for claims last week, a slight drop of 1,000 from the previous week.

* Freddie Mac, the second-largest source of money for U.S. home loans, on Thursday suspended mortgage collections for three months from homeowners affected by Katrina. Freddie Mac backs about $29 billion in home mortgages in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

* The Energy Department said five U.S. crude-oil refineries, accounting for about 6.6 percent of U.S. refining capacity, remained shut because of damage from Hurricane Katrina. Four refineries in Louisiana and one in Mississippi have a combined processing capacity of almost 1.13 million barrels a day.