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Postal Service asks residents to clear snow, ice for carrier safety

Bloomingdale, IL — Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow seems to be the theme song for most of Illinois at the moment, so the U.S. Postal Service is asking customers to help the letter carriers deliver your mail safely by clearing snow and ice from sidewalks, stairs and mailboxes.

Snow and ice make delivery dangerous and slow. Maintaining a clear path to the mail box — including steps, porches, walkways and street approaches – will help letter carriers maintain consistent delivery service, and help them get those letters and packages delivered on time.

Customers receiving door delivery should make sure their sidewalks, steps and porches are clear. Customers receiving curbside delivery should remove snow piles left by snow plows to keep access to their mailboxes clear for letter carriers.

Delivery service may be delayed or curtailed whenever streets or walkways present hazardous conditions for letter carriers or when snow is plowed against mailboxes. The Postal Service curtails delivery only after careful consideration, and only as a last resort. Any curtailed mail is attempted the next delivery day.

Blue collection boxes also need to be kept clear for our customers to deposit their mail and for the Postal Service to collect the mail for delivery. Residents and businesses with collection boxes near their property are asked to keep them clear of snow and ice.

The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 151 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world's mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 35th in the 2011 Fortune 500. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute. Follow USPS on Twitter @USPS_PR and at Facebook.com/usps.

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