United States Postal Service preparing for holiday rush

RENO, Nev. (KOLO) -The busiest time of year is starting to pick up for the United States Postal Service, and the peak season means extra mail and an increase in package volumes.

Randi Jones is the customer service support supervisor, she says last year, USPS had at least an estimated 7 million packages delivered nationwide last holiday season.

“So we’re really amping up, we’ve had new annexes put in to accommodate that,” said Jones. “We’ve had new sorting machines across the nation. This is a whole national plan that we have in place.”

Packages are already starting to fill up the bins and preparation delivery starts in the early morning hours with clerks sorting out mail for the carriers and their appropriate routes before they walk in the door.

“Once they walk through the door, it takes about an hour for them to put up their routes in order, that they have the appropriate mail for that day and that involves them putting it in the truck as well, takes about roughly 2 hours of their day,” added Jones.

Then the mail carriers are off to deliver the mail which takes up to five hours or more of their time. And with busy days ahead, Jones says there are a few things you can do to ensure your mail arrives on time.

“Sending it with priority is huge so you can actually track it online, make sure your parcels are addressed correctly, don’t guess on anything. You can also go to our website, there’s a zip code helper on there, it also helps validate if the address you have on there is correct.”

Jones also wants to remind the community to be patient, USPS is processing mail and packages during one of the most busiest and difficult times of the year.

“We are anticipating it to be a bit busier so we just want to prepare,” said Jones. “We want to have a successful action plan in place so right now I can’t give you and idea of how many packages we’re seeing, but it’s going to be a big one.”

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