The phone call came Aug. 28, when it became evident Hurricane Katrina would thrust its fury on Louisiana and Mississippi coasts.

&#8220They’re coming,” American Red Cross Vicksburg Area chapter executive director Beverly Connelly told emergency services director Janice Sawyer.

And evacuees did, beginning the most daunting disaster relief effort undertaken by the local chapter in its history.

Over the next month, the three-person paid staff of the Vicksburg Area Chapter worked 14-hour days with precious little sleep in between.

Connelly, Sawyer and Rolonda Grayer, who works with families of military personnel in emergencies, saw their job titles quickly merge into one, organizing on the fly as cell phones went down within hours of landfall Monday.

As is the procedure with most of the organization’s responses to disasters, communication was kept constant with American Red Cross regional headquarters in Birmingham in the days leading up to Katrina’s landfall Aug. 29.

Constant, that is, until the power went out.

&#8220I plugged in my phone to charge it that Monday and wasn’t able to speak with Birmingham again until Thursday (Sept. 1),” Sawyer said.

Aided by a local volunteer force that Connelly said has grown to 1,500 in the past four years, the chapter moved quickly to OK the opening of shelters at five area churches.

The evacuees began rolling in even before shelters were ready to accept them.

&#8220We had evacuees from New Orleans by the carload parked outside our main office that Sunday night needing shelter,” Sawyer said.

The local chapter many times previously operated shelters for evacuees from Louisiana and coastal Mississippi, having housed more than 500 of them for Hurricane Ivan last year.

But unlike with Ivan, the story of Katrina did not end with a quick return home. It became a saga.

Evacuee numbers reached more than 1,100 by midweek, and shelter operations were consolidated into the Vicksburg Convention Center after capacities at the churches maxed out.

Added to that strain was having but one emergency response vehicle at the chapter’s disposal, fueled with diesel, which for several weeks was selling higher than regular gas.

&#8220We were stretched pretty thin. If not for the volunteers from national, I just don’t know,” Connelly said.

Red Cross volunteers are routinely matched with disaster efforts by national according to their skill level and experience, Sawyer said.

However, the sheer numbers of evacuees in the convention center turned it from the average shelter to, as Sawyer said, &#8220a small commune.” More help was needed from headquarters.

About 30 volunteers from around the country wound up filling technical and human-oriented needs there: the sign-in functions at the front desk, tending to evacuees’ issues, and working the phones and computers.

&#8220The training from national is really inadequate for something like we faced,” Connelly said, adding that many were trained on the fly at the chapter office.

When it came time to give out family assistance checks, of which the chapter doled out about $1.4 million, the chapter benefited greatly from about 30 Vicksburg High School staff and students who helped with crowd control.

At the request of the mayor and police chief, the application process was moved there after overflow crowds showed up at the chapter’s Cherry Street offices.

&#8220A simple thank you wouldn’t do for that. It really went well,” Sawyer said.

Now, after the hurricanes, operations are getting back to what they usually consider normal. Winter’s arrival likely means more fires, Connelly said, with victims to tend to.

Since the end of shelter operations, the chapter has assisted victims of eight fires in their four-county service area.

Local donations, which fund 80 percent of their efforts, have hit $60,000, including an $11,000 contribution from Rainbow Casino.

All three agreed the lesson learned from their Katrina experience is a simple one.

Written plans do not always dictate what should be done for the next disaster, Sawyer said.

&#8220The experience itself is the key. We’re much more prepared (to go through it again) now than we were Aug. 28,” Sawyer said.