Mail runs heavy with snow backlog

Jeff Kass, Rocky Mountain News

Published December 27, 2006 at midnight

Text size

More Local News

Post offices in Colorado and Wyoming Tuesday were dealing with a headache expected to hit 90 million packages, letters and magazines this week.

The approximately six-day backlog was brought on by last week's blizzard that compounded the normal holiday rush.

But Postal Service spokesman Al DeSarro is predicting that extra shifts, seasonal employees and warm weather melting snowbound streets will ease the pain and erase the backlog by Saturday.

"There's no dashing through the snow," he said. "It's really slogging, trudging and grueling through the snow."

A new storm is expected to hit Denver on Thursday and could drop from 6 inches to 2 feet, according to various weather forecasts. That could further delay delivery, but DeSarro remained hopeful that the mail system could catch its breath by Saturday. "Still trying to save Christmas," he said, "even though we're a little late."

These were some of the numbers, according to DeSarro:

One hundred employees would normally work a Sunday or holiday. But this past Sunday, Christmas Eve, 1,400 additional employees who earned overtime pay or extra time off volunteered to work. On Monday, Christmas Day, that number was 750.

Employees also are taking on 12-hour shifts, and 700 holiday workers who would have been let go after Christmas are staying on.

The Postal Service expects the extra costs to total hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"I think it's been extraordinary in the effort to get the mail delivered," DeSarro said.

Mail circulation, according to DeSarro, is improving.

But DeSarro acknowledged that in some isolated spots, people had not received mail in six days. A major problem, he said, was roads that remained impassable and mailboxes that were buried in snow.

Postal Service efforts were apparent Tuesday at the Denver Bulk Mail Center in north Denver that deals with packages.

A maze of chutes, belts, trays and automated carts crisscrossed the facility the size of about five football fields. The packages were in brown boxes and white boxes, tubes and padded envelopes.

The Mile High post office on Elati Street off Colfax Avenue was mellow. At 5 p.m. Tuesday, there was no line.

Just a couple people were inside. One was Denver carpenter Louis Armendares, who had sent a money order to family in Texas. Armendares' visit to the post office went smoothly, but his home delivery hit a snag.

He had ordered a cellular phone, and Verizon said it would arrive last Wednesday. Tuesday afternoon, Armendares was still waiting for the phone, although he had received other mail.

"The bills," he said, "right on time."

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News