Mail goes through despite dire odds

By Pat Ratliff

The Beacon

Mail carriers get the job done.

We seldom think of it, but the mail always gets through.  It may be a day late occasionally, and we complain when it is – but it inevitably gets to us.

The Alderwood Water & Wastewater District recently sent certified letters to customers notifying them of the details of the sewer moratorium at Picnic Point.  The letters needed to be certified, which requires a signature, in order for the district to have a record of receipt.

No problem there, the district sent out a few thousand certified letters.

No problem unless you’re a mail carrier!

The Mukilteo carriers, who work out of the Everett Mail Center off Airport Way, were hit with the enormous job of delivering 2,000 letters in a time-sensitive manner.

Normally, the carriers deliver their standard letters first, then take care of the special-care items.

There were four different postal routes involved, which meant approximately 500 certified letters per route.

Each letter required knocking on the door, waiting for a response, and getting a signed receipt.

Of course, this sequence happens during the daytime, when many households have no one home.  A note must be filled out stating a certified letter is being held at the post office, and the homeowner needs to come in and sign for it.

Each note contains the name of the recipient, the address, the number code of the piece of mail, and states that the recipient has five days to pick up the letter.

“People always panic when they receive certified letters,” says Mukilteo P.O. postmaster Annette Frye.  “By the next day we had huge lines – people waiting in line to get the letter, thinking something is wrong.  Many were panicked.  We were getting lots of phone calls also.”

The post office opened a side window to help get the lines down, but the workload was daunting.

If an individual fails to respond within five days, another note must be personally delivered and left at the house.

“This has never happened before in my time here,” postmaster Frye says.  “We’re just about through it, but it created chaos for almost three weeks.”

Not that the post office couldn’t handle it.  They can and did.

But as a general practice, they would much prefer advance notice for that large a mailing.