Before Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the Gulf Coast, the U.S. Postal Service's New Orleans processing and distribution center handled 6 million to 8 million letters each day. Katrina flooded the facility with 14 million gallons of water, destroying every critical building system. In late April the U.S. Postal Service officially reopened its New Orleans plant, the primary mail-processing facility for mail to and from Louisiana.
The reopening of the New Orleans facility is the latest in a list of actions the Postal Service undertook to keep the mail moving following one of the worst natural disasters in our nation's history, including setting up a New Orleans post office and a temporary ZIP Code for evacuees sheltered at the Houston Astrodome.
With annual revenues of $70 billion, the U.S. Postal Service is the world's leading provider of mailing and delivery services. It delivers more than 46% of the world's mail volume--some 212 billion letters, advertisements, periodicals and packages a year--and serves seven million customers each day at 37,000 retail locations nationwide.
