NEITHER RAIN NOR SLEET?The storm has passed, the cleanup is under way and local residents want at least one piece of their normal, pre-Katrina lives back: their mail! Wednesday, November 23, 2005 By Michelle Hunter Arthur Zatarain knows his mail is out there somewhere.
"It's somewhere in the bowels of an Indiana Jones-style warehouse, probably beneath a mountain in Montana," joked Zatarain, who said he is genetically but not financially linked to the popular Cajun spice empire of the same name. He and his wife, Georgette, had their mail forwarded to Lafayette shortly after the storm. The first piece of forwarded mail arrived Nov. 10, weeks after they had already returned to Metairie from evacuation. But little else has reached their mailbox, including a document they've been waiting for from their mortgage company showing their house was paid off just a week before Hurricane Katrina hit. They want that paperwork. "It's so screwed up," Zatarain said. "But it's the uncertainty that's killing us. They can't give us a straight answer on where the mail is." The Zatarains are feeling the postal pain shared by many in the New Orleans area since Katrina made landfall. And with the holiday season approaching, the concern about mail service is likely to heighten. U.S. Postal Service letter carriers are making street deliveries in Jefferson Parish and some portions of Orleans and St. Tammany parishes. Residents of other hard-hit areas can pick up mail at alternative sites set up by the postal service. But some residents and businesses report letters and packages sometimes taking weeks instead of days to arrive. Postal officials said carriers are doing the best they can and could not say how long it now takes, on average, for mail to be delivered in New Orleans. But a Times-Picayune postal test tracking letters sent to New Orleans addresses revealed delivery times of up to two weeks. Post office officials say that's because of damage at several post offices, including the state's largest mail processing plant located in New Orleans. Despite that, and the personal losses suffered by employees, the men and women of the USPS have been working hard to restore service, and delivery waits should only shorten in the future, officials said.
Survey says
In the last week of October, six Times-Picayune employees living in various parts of the New Orleans area mailed letters to one another. Each person also received two more letters, one mailed from Georgia, the other from New York. It took one letter mailed from the French Quarter to a residence in Mandeville just two days to arrive. But a letter from Mandeville to the French Quarter took eight days, and it took at least six days for the others mailed to local addresses. Out-of-state mail, especially letters sent from Georgia, seemed to take longer. One letter mailed to Terrytown from Georgia arrived after 14 days. Postal Service spokeswoman Darla Stafford said the reason for the extended delivery times is the circuitous journey New Orleans-bound mail now has to take since Katrina took out the state's main mail processing plant. And with Christmas just a month away, she urged residents to plan ahead and mail earlier than they normally would. Before the storm, the New Orleans plant, at 701 Loyola Ave., processed 6 million to 8 million letters for Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles and St. Tammany parishes, as well as for parts of Mississippi and Alabama, post office officials have said. But floodwaters destroyed the electronic equipment stored in the basement, reaching the first floor and leaving the facility unusable, Stafford said. Instead of the one-stop shop at the New Orleans plant, a letter mailed across town now must travel to Baton Rouge for a postmark, then to Houston to check for forwarding addresses, back to Baton Rouge, then on to St. Rose to be sorted for delivery and back to the appropriate local post office, Stafford said. "We apologize for any delays," she said, "We hope the people understand that we've got a lot of logistical challenges that we didn't have before. But we are getting better every day." Until two weeks ago, mail sorting was done in Beaumont, Texas, said postal Service spokesman Dave Lewin. But now it's done in the recently reopened St. Rose mail facility on Airline Drive, letting officials shave a day or two off the trip. In Houston, the mail is run through a computer that checks for the most recent change-of-address order. Within the next four weeks, officials hope to install a similar system in Baton Rouge, cutting more time.
Local bypass
But speeding up the mail will take time. The slow pace of delivery is affecting more than just residents. Some businesses that have relied on the Postal Service are now making other arrangements. Mpress, a commercial printing and mailing company in Kenner, has taken to trucking its mail to a post office in Jackson, Miss., said Ron Stewart, vice president of marketing. The post office there takes care of checking forwarding orders, he said, eliminating the trip to Houston and saving a couple of days. Ben Bagert, attorney with the Bagert Law Firm in New Orleans, said his employees have turned to overnight delivery services and the Internet. They've had to become savvy in scanning documents as electronic files and e-mailing them to clients, he said. "The mail is just not as reliable as it was before the storm," Bagert said. "We're figuring ways around it. We're not casting blame or aspersions. We understand what it's like to be shorthanded." Before Katrina, Bagert said, his firm received about 70 pieces of mail a day, including unsolicited junk mail. Now that's down to about 20 pieces. And he's not alone. Others say there just seems to be less mail, as if some of it is missing. Stewart said some clients reported they never received some mail that Mpress sent out before the company starting trucking its mail to Jackson. Many residents, like Zatarain, say the volume is down. Lewin said that's correct, because roughly less than half of the usual volume is now coming in. That is due in part to a ban on advertising and periodicals. Since Katrina, only first class mail -- letters, bills, cards, parcels and packages -- have been given delivery priority over mail such as advertisements, credit card solicitations, magazines and catalogs, Lewin said. That mail usually makes up about 50 percent of the mail handled, he said. The ban is still in effect for all of Orleans Parish, and portions of St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes. Lewin could not say when the ban would be lifted, but postal officials said it could be early next year. Some of the missing mail could be the advertisements and magazines most people are used to receiving, Stafford said. But some could be first-class mail that is not forwarded at the mailer's request. Some mailers, for example, a few financial institutions, have do-not-forward orders. The mailer may have asked the post office to notify them of any change-of-address. Credit cards, for example, are never forwarded to a new address, Stafford said.
Taking steps
If any resident or business is concerned about missing mail, Stafford suggested contacting the Postal Service help line to make sure all change-of-address orders are correct. Stafford recommended contacting the mailer in all cases just to check on the item sent and make sure there were no changes to mailing procedures. Stafford also encouraged residents to stop by their local post office to notify their carrier that they are back, if they have not done so already. And though some residents may wonder if mail from the days and weeks after Katrina was stored somewhere, both Stafford and Lewin said that is not the case. Most of the mail in post offices the weekend before Katrina hit was delivered on the Saturday before the storm. Most of what was left over was trucked out of the area. A small amount of mail at the New Orleans plant was damaged, Lewin said, some beyond recognition. But a large portion of that was not first-class mail, he said. Another issue for the Postal Service is similar to the challenges facing most local businesses, Stafford said. While many Postal Service employees are back at work despite suffering personal tragedies during and after the storm, some have not returned to the area. But the post office has made mail service a priority. The mail is flowing, she said. "I apologize for any frustration the customers are having," Stafford said. "But we're delivering to people. It just takes a little bit longer because of the logistical issues." . . . . . . . |