Having your house destroyed in a fire is a terrible tragedy. Unfortunately, Hawaiian wildfire survivors can’t catch a break even after rebuilding their homes. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is making survivors’ lives needlessly difficult by refusing mail service.
According to a recent report by The Guardian reporter Dara Kerr, “As fire victims have started to return to Lahaina after going through the process of rebuilding their homes, dozens of these mailboxes have become useless.” While residents weren’t told initially why they were no longer getting mail, a complaint resulted in the following email by the agency: “All dwellings that were affected by the fires in 2023 that have been rebuilt will no longer receive street delivery” because “new development[s]” are not eligible for door-to-door service. This will almost certainly cause significant inconvenience for affected families, including unnecessary trips to out-of-the-way post offices and long lines. The USPS’s travesty of a response shows an out-of-touch agency too often unresponsive to the needs of its customer base.
The USPS’s shocking apathy toward wildfire victims is certainly not the first time the agency has inappropriately tried to restrict door-to-door service. For example, America’s mail carrier has been sending notices to ordinary apartment buildings bizarrely claiming that the complexes are “dormitories” and therefore responsible for distributing their own mail.
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