Mail to some on LI delayed by storm, flu, officials said

Still waiting after all these days.

For the mail that is.

Long Islanders in a number of areas Wednesday said the U.S. Postal Service has not caught up with delays officially pinned on the flu and the intense snowstorm that hit Jan. 4.

In Farmingdale, Chuck Ianson, 63, would quite like his passports to show up.

In Merrick, Michael Dachs, 51, is waiting for checks owed to his Westbury-based printing and embroidery firm.

In Massapequa, Theresa Gillespie, wondered: “Maybe I should tell people to find another way of getting what I need to me.”

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), who also had no mail for 5 to 6 days, was contacted by constituents who complained their mail was delayed after the storm, his spokesman said by email.

SEE PHOTOSSnowstorms that buried LI over the past 100-plus years

The Seaford postmaster informed King “their mail would be delivered as quickly as possible,” King spokesman Kevin Fogarty said. “Apparently it was a combination of snow conditions and employees with the flu,” Fogarty said.

By email, Christine Dugas, a post office spokeswoman agreed the problem was not just the powerful snow storm that made driving on Long Island last Thursday so perilous.

“There [is] no one single cause. It’s just one major storm with multiple impacts,” Dugas said.

About 90 percent of Long Island’s 187 post offices were affected by the storm, she said. Some areas, including MacArthur Airport, were blanketed with a foot of snow.

“Mail is delivered on a case by case basis after a storm like Grayson,” she said, referring to the name given to the system. She said: “It depends on what roads are safe for mail vehicles to travel on and whether or not the mailbox is cleared, as well as other safety concerns.”

Both Ianson and Dachs, who received no mail for 5 days, said their neighborhoods promptly cleared their walks.

“And my driveway and stoop are perfectly clean,” said Ianson. “I made sure the salt was down. . . . I don’t want my carrier to have an accident.”

Dachs did not fault the post office for failing to make the rounds during the storm — and even the day after.

“The first day I understand; I understand the second day, possibly,” he said.

Still, he noted he made it to work on Friday. “Five days, that’s pushing it a little bit.”

Ianson’s passports were due in the middle of this week. Though his trip is about six weeks away, “I don’t need them to get lost.”

Dachs, the Westbury businessman, said he understood other people are waiting for “more important things than I am.” Still, “I am worried about those checks.”

When deliveries resumed Wednesday, he received three items: “Two were catalogs and one was junk mail.”

Gillespie, who lives in an apartment complex, said deliveries resumed after about two days. Still, some of her neighbors are fretting about delays in the pick up of outgoing mail.

“They are worried, ‘Well, it’s my car insurance’ . . . people have very real concerns,” she said.

The trio waiting on the mail have something else in common: none faulted their carriers.

“He’s a lovely man,” Gillespie said of her carrier.