How the U.S. Postal Service ensures that your mail still gets delivered during weather disasters

AccuWeather

Rae Ann Haight, the USPS Director of National Preparedness, explains to AccuWeather how their plans keep the mail running despite wildfires or hurricanes or any emergency.

Transcript

00:00When severe weather or natural disasters strike, the U.S. mail still has to go through.

00:05That takes planning, training, and rapid response.

00:07Joining us is Rae Ann Haidt, Director of National Preparedness for the U.S. Postal Service.

00:12What's the mission of the USPS Office of National Preparedness,

00:16and how does it support mail delivery during a weather emergency?

00:21Well, we are a small but mighty group of emergency preparedness professionals,

00:26and we cover the entire organization, so from Guam, Alaska, Hawaii, all of the U.S., the Caribbean,

00:35and what we do is we put in place plans, procedures, protocols.

00:41We have all sorts of preparedness guides and tools and resources so that we can rebound

00:47and be ready for any type of emergency event.

00:51All right, so how does USPS, how do they prepare for severe weather events,

00:55and what's the difference between things like wildfires and hurricanes or blizzards,

00:59like those three things, how do you differentiate those?

01:03Well, with wildfires, of course, that's an immediate action that you need to take.

01:08With hurricanes, you do have an opportunity to watch the forecast for a few days to be able to prepare

01:15so that we can figure out exactly where this may come to play,

01:20and that is where we rely so heavily on the forecast.

01:24So part of what we do is monitoring the forecast.

01:27We do that daily, sometimes hourly.

01:30The local news channels, the National Weather Service,

01:34AccuWeather for you all, and then the National Hurricane Center.

01:37So we take all of those advisories.

01:40We take the maps.

01:41We actually overlay our postal facilities on those maps

01:45so that we know exactly about where this storm could hit.

01:49And when we do that, we can help pre-position some of the assets and resources that we would need.

01:56But the other efforts that we take to be able to prepare is that we have robust prepare disguise.

02:01We have emergency threat checklists.

02:04And we actually, this team, trains, creates and trains and facilitates training

02:09for over 238 emergency management teams across the country.

02:14So we test all of that leadership for severe weather procedures,

02:19as well as our continuity of operations plans are tested.

02:24And we do all of this to ensure that we are able to meet our mission,

02:28critical, essential function of delivering mail to the American public.

02:33Wow, some really important work there.

02:35We've definitely had our fair share of high-impact weather events

02:38over the last couple of weeks and months.

02:40Can you share a recent example where a preparedness plan kept mail moving during a disaster?

02:46Well, as you know, we are in every community.

02:50We are delivering to every address.

02:53So our continuity business plans are always in play.

02:58A recent example would be with the North Carolina,

03:02with Hurricane Helene, which was so devastating.

03:04Our postal facilities were also impacted.

03:07And what we did to keep those plans moving for our customers

03:11is we actually deployed mobile post office units that would sit in the parking lot

03:16for customers to be able to arrive and send, receive their mail,

03:21all while that facility was being repaired.

03:25So we have so many examples of our service that we provide.

03:29It's the fabric of what we do.

03:31And, in fact, the Postal Service is celebrating its 250-year anniversary starting this week.

03:37So every letter, every mile, sits 1775.

03:42Wow.

03:43Breanne Haidt, Director of National Preparedness for the U.S. Postal Service.

03:47Thank you so much for joining us and for the important work you do.

03:50Thank you for having me.

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