The weekend’s winter storm has forced the United States Postal Service to suspended mail delivery service to some residential and business customers in Arkansas, a spokeswoman for the mail carrier said Wednesday.
“Currently, postal operations in Arkansas have been affected by the winter weather that has moved into the area,” postal service spokeswoman Becky Hernandez said in a statement. “Local postal officials will continually monitor conditions and make thoughtful decisions regarding processing, delivery, transportation and retail operations.”
Hernandez did not comment on which areas or customers are experiencing delays. The announcement comes after the mail carrier issued a service alert on Jan. 23 for much of the country, including Arkansas, saying that the winter storm may affect mail delivery. It also extended its embargo on mailing certain parcels, like birds and insects, on Jan. 24.
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Mail within cities in Northwest Arkansas is still being delivered, though with some delays and route changes, said Ike Mills, president of Northwest Arkansas Area Local 667 of the American Postal Workers Union. The bigger challenge is delivering mail into and out of the area from other cities and states, he said.
The frigid temperatures and iced roads also led e-commerce giant Amazon to halt deliveries in some areas of the state as it adjusts its operations, according to a spokesman for the company. The company’s LIT2 facility — its only large-scale operation in Central Arkansas after the closure of its LIT1 facility late last year — was closed Monday because of the weather.
Amazon spokesman Richard Rocha said that some sites across the country will halt operations, but did not comment on specific locations. Rocha also did not comment on specific areas that will see delays, but said in a statement that the company is “carefully monitoring conditions to balance getting orders delivered with keeping everyone safe.”
Amazon has two other locations in Arkansas besides the currently closed LIT2. Its massive LIT1 facility at the Port of Little Rock was indefinitely closed in November because of structural issues and its $150 million LIT3 facility at the port is currently under construction.
San Francisco-based delivery company DoorDash also temporarily suspended its Little Rock operations over the weekend.
The Postal Service posted a net loss of $9 billion this past fiscal year, according to a financial report released by the service in November. It had an operating revenue of $80.5 billion this past fiscal year, a 1.2% increase from the previous fiscal year.
The Postal Service announced plans to cut approximately 10,000 employees through a voluntary early retirement program in 2025, but Postmaster General David Steiner said in November that those cuts won’t be the sole fix to the mail carrier’s financial woes, The Associated Press reported.
Information for this article was contributed by Doug Thompson of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Lucas Dufalla is a Report for America Corps member. Financial support for this coverage came from the Community Journalism Project.
