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USPS: Texas mail delays have attention of 'postal leadership at the highest levels'

In a letter to Congress, a high-ranking USPS official responded to elected officials' questions brought on by KHOU 11's reporting of the delays.

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HOUSTON — We have an update to the postal delays we’ve been reporting on since mid-December. KHOU 11 was first to tell you about the weeks-long delays in postal deliveries and our reporting got the attention of lawmakers, who have been demanding answers from the U.S. Postal Service.

On Saturday, KHOU 11 obtained a letter from a high-ranking USPS official in response to questions from Houston-area members of Congress about the delays and what’s being done to address them.

The letter from Peter Pastre, VP of Government Relations and Public Policy with the USPS, is dated Friday, Feb. 2. In it, Pastre said the delays have “the attention of postal leadership at the highest levels.” (Full text of the letter is below)

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Pastre said there are several reasons for the delays, some in the control of the USPS and some he said that were not. He pointed to what he called “disappointing employee attendance issues” which weren’t addressed by management.

"I bet this isn't the first day, week or month that they've had attendance issues," said U.S. Rep. Randy Weber, who we talked to about the letter Saturday night. "What do you think? More than likely, this has been an ongoing problem that should have been addressed or they should have had a backup, multiple places, multiple teams to do this."

Pastre said there were equipment and transition failures. While he didn’t specify in the letter what the equipment issues were, last month, KHOU 11 spoke to an employee who said the problems were because a new sorting machine didn’t fit in the north Houston facility. It was a claim backed up by a USPS union representative, who told Rep. Al Green   about the same equipment issue. 

"Why didn't they test it before they installed it, before they took out the old sorting machine?" Weber asked. "Where was the company that backed up their product that said we will make this thing work?"

Pastre wrote in his letter that "the region was also hit with several winter storms," saying that made a bad situation even worse. While it's not clear what the region in Pastre's letter covers, in the Houston area, the only winter weather was two to three days starting Jan. 15. 2024. That was more than a month after our first report of the delays. On those days, there were some road closures because of ice, but there has been no additional winter weather in Houston since. We've reached out to the USPS to clarify what the region covers.

Pastre confirmed that more resources were sent in to address the personnel situation, as well as the equipment problems and processes.

Weber believes there are more issues than what was mentioned in the letter.

"They have a problem with communication," Weber said. "They have a problem with flexibility. And they have a problem with moving employees around and having a backup plan. They must have a backup plan."

The USPS response to Congress is very different from what they told us when we first reported on the delays back on Dec. 13. Back then, they told us that all packages were being processed as they were received. 

Since then, we've heard from thousands of you and shared your stories. 

This latest USPS letter claims the situation in Houston is "meaningfully improved." Whether that's accurate is still unclear. The letter did say they would give updates on the progress.

"I'm not holding my breath till they provide updates," Weber said.  "They need to get in front of Congress. They need to come see us eyeball to eyeball. They need to take ownership of the problem." 

Weber said the USPS also owes the American people a public apology, something that hasn't happened yet.  

The full text of the letter to Congress from Pastre is below.

Dear Members of Congress:

I am writing to you regarding the ongoing concerns of members of the Texas congressional delegation regarding recent mail processing challenges in the Houston area. The Postal Service has received multiple inquiries from members of Congress regarding delays their constituents are experiencing. While we have endeavored to respond to these inquiries with the best available information, local and national management continues to identify additional factors that require additional attention. This letter is intended to provide you with the most up-to-date information on our ongoing efforts to restore the level of service our customers expect.

There were several causes to the delays in Houston – some were in our control, and some were not. The confluence of them, however, coupled with higher package volume, resulted in the problems that we have been working diligently to fix. First, there were very disappointing employee attendance issues, which were not appropriately and immediately addressed by management. That is being corrected. We also installed new sorting equipment to add capacity at the facility, and as can happen with any new machines, there were equipment and transition failures that needed to be addressed. Those equipment failures contributed further to backups in processing on our docks. Finally, the region was also hit with several winter storms, which exacerbated the impacts of some of the other issues described above, and which always impact our operations (and every other transportation and logistics company) since we can’t move our products across our network in severe weather.

As we mentioned previously, we dispatched additional resources to fix all of the issues in our control: people, machines, and processes. The situation in Houston is meaningfully improved from conditions a couple weeks ago, and while there are still issues and delays they are being tightly managed. It has the attention of postal leadership at the highest levels.

As we continue to work through these challenges, we will provide your offices with additional updates.

Sincerely,

Peter E. Pastre

USPS mail delays could soon be a nationwide problem

Earlier this week, U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher spoke on how the issues facing the Houston area could become nationwide as the U.S. Postal Service works to modernize its networking system.

The congresswoman said Postmaster General Louis Dejoy's plan to make the postal service more efficient is being poorly implemented and the issues that the two Houston-area sorting facilities are experiencing are just the beginning of a bigger issue.

"We're (Houston) on the early end of this," Fletcher said. "The north Houston and Missouri City facilities are kind of in the first round of changes so this is a problem for us and could be a problem for Americans across the country if it continues to be implemented in this way."

Problems began at north Houston Distribution Center

On Tuesday, Rep. Green spoke with USPS union representatives who backed up what an insider told KHOU 11 News about what triggered the massive delays. The union reps confirmed that it started with a new piece of equipment at the north Houston facility.

That sorting machine was too big, according to the whistleblower, so smaller machines had to be removed to make room for it. 

Meantime, staff members had already been transferred with the expectation of a lighter workload thanks to the new machine. So something that was supposed to help, ended up making things much worse.

Are you having issues with the post office? Send an email to mailproblems@khou.com and let us know. You can see our coverage of delays at Houston-area USPS processing centers on KHOU.com/PostalProblems.

Tracking the mail: Our stories on the postal delays  

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