MACHIAS, Maine — The U.S. Postal Service is known for its creed about bad weather not preventing mail carriers from “the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
But for about the past month, that hasn’t exactly been the case in eastern Washington County.
The series of snowstorms that has pummeled much of Maine since late January, especially along the Down East coast, has done more than just exhaust public works crews, repeatedly cancel school days for thousands of students and set records for extreme weather. It has resulted in carnage and oblivion for hundreds of roadside residential mailboxes.
Scores of mailboxes have been demolished by snowplows operating in whiteout conditions or buried deep in snowbanks as work crews have struggled to clear the roads of more than 10 feet of snow that has fallen in many eastern county towns over the past six weeks.
As a result, when mail carriers have gone out to deliver the mail, they often have found no mailbox to leave it in. People with missing mailboxes have been told by postal service personnel that they must go to the local post office to pick up their mail.
On Friday, U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Melissa Lohnes said that, contrary to a notice that was sent recently to customers with missing mailboxes, post office personnel would make sure that all mail is held indefinitely until the recipients can pick it up or replace their mailbox.
About a week ago, the inconvenience many people felt by not getting mail deliveries turned to alarm when Karen A. Nelson, the postmaster in Machias, sent a notice to affected customers in Machias and surrounding towns. The notice said that if the missing mailboxes were not dug out or replaced by “around the 1st of March,” the post office would start sending the customers’ mail back to senders.
“That’s just foolishness,” Machiasport resident James Harnedy said Friday.
Harnedy, 82, said he had hip surgery about a year ago and is taking care of his wife, who has cancer. The notice he received on Feb. 14 said that customers could erect temporary mailboxes on posts set in five-gallon buckets, but Harnedy dismissed the idea.
“There’s no way I can lug a bucket full of sand with a post in it [around my driveway],” Harnedy said, noting that it would quickly get buried, too, if it wasn’t moved around to make way for plow trucks.
Harnedy said he has direct deposit for his Social Security checks and that he and his wife do not receive any medications in the mail, but they do need to get and to pay their bills — especially their medical bills, which are steep. He said it is not easy for him to make the four-mile drive to the Machiasport post office, which has reduced the hours it is open because of budget constraints.
Nelson’s notice suggested that customers could temporarily rent a box at their local post office, but Harnedy said this also was a nonstarter.
“My intention is not to get one,” he said. “I’m trying to conserve my money and pay for medical expenses.”
Contacted this week, Nelson declined to comment on the situation and instead referred all questions to Lohnes.
Lohnes, who is based at the postal service’s regional headquarters in Boston, said Friday that the U.S. Postal Service has an official policy that limits holding periods to 30 days, even if customers pick up their mail at local post offices every few days. But in the case of Machias and surrounding towns, she added, U.S. Postal Service officials have decided not to enforce the policy.
“We are not going to return anyone’s mail [to senders]”, Lohnes said. “We’ve made the decision to be a little more relaxed.”
Lohnes said that, even for customers whose mailboxes are still intact and accessible, the harsh weather has made delivery slower than normal, forcing carriers to work longer days.
“Because this winter has been so severe, we’re going to work with all of our customers to accommodate their needs,” she said.
A Roque Bluffs woman who asked not to be identified picked up her mail at the Machias post office about midday Friday. She said her mailbox has been demolished twice this winter by plow trucks, once in late January and again a few days ago.
“It’s not horrible,” she said of having to pick up her mail at the post office. “It’s more convenient to get it at home, [but] I am in Machias every day.”
Brent Hartford, manager of the local EBS building supply store, said Friday that he typically sells half a dozen or so mailboxes each winter but this year has sold maybe three times as many. Usually, the mailboxes are kept in a back aisle, but this winter they have been displayed prominently on a shelf near the cash register, he said.
Hartford added that he expects to sell several more, even after winter finally releases its grip on eastern Maine. As the snowbanks melt away, they will expose damaged mailboxes that have been buried from view.
“I would think a lot of those will have to be replaced,” Hartford said.
Machias resident Matt Bauman, who lives on Water Street, said Friday that he shoveled out his mailboxes after the blizzard in late January, but then “gave up” after the next storm buried them again a few days later. The boxes stayed buried in the bank of plowed snow after that and just recently have become visible again as higher temperatures have melted away some of the snowpack.
Bauman said it has been easier to pick up his family’s mail at the Machias post office every few days than to repeatedly dig the mailboxes out after each storm.
“It freezes, it thaws. It freezes, it thaws,” he said. “You’ve got to go out there with a pickaxe.”
