PALMETTO, Ga. — Wild video shows a mail machine spewing packages onto the floor at a troubled metro Atlanta mail facility.
Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes was at the new Palmetto United States Postal facility Friday, where mail delays have gotten national attention, including from Sen. Jon Ossoff.
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The video shows “the MARS machine,” or Matrix Regional Sorter, spitting packages out so quickly workers can’t catch them. Several land on the floor.
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Federal Postmaster Louis DeJoy said the Palmetto is operating at 36% in terms of getting mail out on time.
The Postmaster now has a new deadline to fix the problems: One week.
The Palmetto facility was supposed to make operations more efficient, but management has been an issue and it’s been an issue to get the place to run smoothly.
Workers were afraid to tell Fernandes what is going on inside, but one worker got so upset about the MARS machine malfunctioning that he sent a video.
Workers said issues like these are why there are massive mail delays all across Georgia.
“You are failing abysmally to fulfill your core mission,” Sen. Jon Ossoff said in a spacial Senate hearing on April 16.
Several congressional leaders demanded answers from DeJoy as he sat in the hot seat for hours. He told Ossoff that things in Georgia would improve soon.
“When is it going to be fixed,” Ossoff said.
“You will see service improve. You should see it starting now and I think we’ll get to where we need to be in about 60 days,” DeJoy said.
It’s now been about 30 days.
Sen. Ossoff said he hasn’t heard anything or seen improvement.
He sent another letter to DeJoy Friday demanding an update in a week. Part of the letter says: “As we have discussed throughout the past few weeks, it is urgent that the performance of USPS delivery in Georgia- improve immediately.”
Andrea Moore lives in Cobb County. She said she hasn’t gotten mail in three months, right around the time the Palmetto facility opened.
“I haven’t gotten one piece of mail, so I’m back here again,” she said. “I’m trying to see where’s my mail, my bills.”
She’s not the only person still having issues. Fernandes spoke to a mom who bought her daughter a trip for graduation. They won’t be able to go because their passports are caught up in the delays.
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