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Postal Service swings into high-volume mode By Dave Richardson The Times Herald-Record drichardson@th-record.com Hit-hard by a season of tragedy, terror and uncertainty, the United States Postal Service is in full holiday swing. Post office lines throughout the region were long and constant yesterday, officially the busiest mailing day of the year. And, despite lingering anthrax fears and economic woes, the region's holiday mail volume is about the same as last year, Postal Service officials said. Each year, the postal service handles more than 20 billion pieces of mail. Between Dec. 1 and Dec. 16, the Stewart Airport distribution center handled 5.2 million. "They expect to be processing about another 900,000 just on Monday," spokesman Tony Musso said. Security is an ever-present concern these days, and Musso said postal workers in our region are on the alert for anything out of the ordinary. "Certainly if anything looks suspicious it's isolated," Musso said. "We've distributed more than 14,000 pairs of gloves, and a lot of face masks for workers to use. It's not mandatory, but we want to have them available." Among those mailing holiday packages and cards yesterday was Warwick resident Karen Annicaro. She acknowledged being concerned about the safety of the mail. "This is the first time I've actually brought my children to a post office since Sept. 11, and I'm not letting them touch anything," Annicaro said. She and her two children, Ashley and Frankie, were busy sticking stamps on a stack of envelopes. "Forty-two of them are cards, the rest are bills," Annicaro said. Fran Gorish of Florida had about 60 cards to mail yesterday, anthrax worries or no. "I do worry about it, but I feel we should carry on as we have before – that's what the president wants us to do." Customer Service Supervisor Don Darien said Newburgh's Liberty Street post office was flooded with packages, but also said the high volume was not unexpected at holiday time. Bryan Williams of Warwick can attest to that. He typically mails about 300 packages a week from his online auction business. This week though, that number was closer to 800. "It's a great business, and the post office is getting my stuff to people on time," he said.
Copyright 2001 Orange County Publications, a division of Ottaway Newspapers Inc., all rights reserved. |
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