Eastern Washington mail delivery canceled Wednesday after damage to Spokane facility

The Tri-Cities was spared the worst of Tuesday’s windstorms, but the effects from elsewhere in the state were felt here.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night were to blame Wednesday for no mail delivery in Eastern Washington. Blame the wind instead.

Mail service was canceled after the storm damaged the Postal Service’s Spokane processing facility, spokesman Ernie Swanson said.

Winds topping 100 mph broke skylights and allowed rain into the building. Power was knocked out and not restored until about noon Wednesday. Natural gas was out, so the building had no heat.

Only mail that already had been sent out before the storm hit was delivered.

Several other Spokane post offices also were without power, Swanson said.

The Postal Service hopes by Nov. 19 to deliver mail that has collected since the storm, if it can get the processing equipment working.

This is the first time that Swanson can remember in his more than 30 years with the Postal Service that mail service has been canceled in such a large area in Washington.

“Bear with us,” he said. “We understand how important the mail can be to people. We’re doing the best we can under the circumstances to resume service as soon as possible.”

All Tri-City mail has been routed through Spokane since the 2013 closure of Pasco’s processing facility as part of national cost-cutting moves.

No major damage was reported in Tri-Cities, according to city officials.

About 675 Franklin Public Utility District customers, mostly west of Mesa, were without power, but it was restored by 5 p.m. Tuesday, spokeswoman Stacey Azure said. Employees worked through the night to assist with outages in smaller areas and continued making small repairs Wednesday.

Nothing significant was reported to city crews in Richland or Kennewick.

Kennewick officials credited the recent removal of some older trees in Columbia Park with helping the city avoid more damage. City spokeswoman Evelyn Lusignan said workers had to pick up some branches in parks.

“We feel like some of the mitigation we did last year really helped us with the storm event,” she said.

This story was originally published November 18, 2015 at 6:03 AM with the headline "Eastern Washington mail delivery canceled Wednesday after damage to Spokane facility."