Natchez &8212; One of the biggest success stories of the post-Katrina emergency response was the performance of the Miss-Lou chapter of the American Red Cross in distributing assistance checks to evacuees.

The mandate from the national office was simple: give out checks to as many qualified people as quickly as possible.

With their resources and volunteer workforce strained from running the area&8217;s shelters, John Goodrich and his executive staff did a commendable thing: they asked the national office for help.

Help came in the form of experienced volunteers who helped Goodrich and company set up an effective distribution model.

They included in their planning sessions leaders of banks, law enforcement and politics to make sure everything would run as smoothly as could be expected.

The operation they ran out of the Natchez Convention Center was a success mitigated only by the desperate shape it revealed the coastal population to be in.

While the Jackson distribution center was sending out press releases crowing about the 500 people a day it were serving, the team in Natchez was doing that many by lunchtime.

The final numbers for the five-day operation topped 10,000 checks totaling over $10 million. And zero riots.

Yes, things got heated when the Red Cross cut the line off in the middle of the night Wednesday and Thursday, but a well-coordinated security team &8212; made up of S.W.A.T, National Guard and members of the entire Miss-Lou law enforcement &8212; kept things from getting out of control.

Many people in the line said they appreciated the order and clarity of the system: while Jackson and other centers were giving out appointment vouchers, in Natchez, if you were in line by a certain time, you would be seen that day. End of story.

The organization and execution of the operation is a pleasant reminder of what a community can do when it uses all of its resources to meet a common goal.