With a second snowstorm in less than a week hitting Iowa, the U.S. Postal Service is putting out a reminder to keep the path clear to your mailbox or you may not get mail. Postal Service spokesman Roger Humphries says make sure your sidewalks and steps are shoveled out and ice-free for mail carriers.
“If you’ve got your steps clear or your approach to your box on the house clear, we’ll try to get to you,” Humpries says. “The biggest issue we have is the curbside boxes.” The areas around those boxes need to be shoveled out, especially if a snow plow has been by and piled up mounds of snow.
Humphries says mail service may be limited, depending on which streets have been plowed. “Cul de sacs, hills, anything like that where it can make it difficult to get up, the carriers are instructed to go back the next day,” he says.
“Hopefully, that area will be cleared.” Humphries says the carrier will make every attempt to get the mail to your front door but won’t risk a broken ankle or some other injury to do it.
“The carriers have to make that decision while they’re out on the route,” he says. “Obviously, we can’t afford to have them hurt.” While parts of northwestern Iowa near Sioux City got whalloped with up to ten inches of snow late last week, the forecast calls for up to nine inches of snow to fall on southeast Iowa in this latest storm.