"Neither rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night will keep postal employees from their appointed rounds."
Bloomington post office says "Fuck all that!"
Snow Keeps Mailman Away For WeekResidents' Snow Mounds Keep Mail From Being DeliveredBLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The motto might say neither rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night will keep postal employees from their appointed rounds, but apparently mounds of snow will.
Bloomington Postmaster Jim Mennel is advising customers that haven't received mail since last week to stop by the post office, where it's being held after about a foot of snow fell on the area Jan. 27-28.
Snow piles on curbs in some neighborhoods have kept delivery vehicles from reaching mailboxes, Mennel said.
The snow plows opened up one lane down the middle and traffic can come and go, but in shoveling driveways, many of the residents mounded the snow up in the path to the mailboxes," Mennel told The Herald-Times.
Other customers cleared walking paths to their mailboxes, but that didn't help most motor routes. Mennel said it's not feasible for a carrier with more than 600 stops to get out and walk up to the mailbox at each stop. Drivers need a clear path to pull their vehicles up to the mailbox.
"There aren't a lot of people in that category -- maybe several hundred -- but it got to the point that we were taking their mail out in hopes of being able to make delivery, they'd come in and say they hadn't gotten their mail, and our carriers were still unable to reach their mailboxes," Mennel said Thursday.
Bob Baker, who lives on Bloomington's south side, said he learned that the post office was holding his mail when he made a trip to the office to ensure that his outgoing mail would get sent.
"There have been red flags up on most of the mailboxes around here for several days now and I didn't want to wait any longer," Baker said. "While I was there, I asked about my mail, and they had it all bundled up for delivery."
Even the gloom of night is keeping some carriers from their appointed rounds. Mennel said the lack of plowing and shoveling, taken in tandem with new and unfamiliar routes, is keeping some carriers from completing their routes by 5 p.m.
"We really don't want them out after dark, for obvious safety reasons," the postmaster said.
Some carriers have had to work overtime to complete their routes, Mennel said.
"We're not supposed to work them any more than 10 hours, period," he said. "But we've already used more penalty overtime in the last several weeks than we used all of last year."
Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press.
http://www.theindychannel.com/newsarchive/18658078/detail.html
