Terminal Annex Power Blackout Delays L.A. Mail

The delivery of an estimated 1.5 million letters was delayed for a day in parts of Los Angeles by an 8 1/2-hour power blackout that virtually halted operations at the downtown Terminal Annex Post Office, the largest mail operation in the West, officials said Friday.

But flat packages, magazines and newspapers were not affected by the outage, termed by officials to be the biggest ever to hit Terminal Annex, which handles about 8.3 million pieces of mail daily.

U.S. Postal Service spokesman David Mazer said scores of employees worked overtime to handle the backlog caused by the outage and ensure that all delayed mail will go out by today.

“Everyone who was supposed to get mail today (Friday) and didn’t (because of the delay) will get it Saturday,” Mazer said.

Plunged Into Darkness

Delivery areas affected by the delay included downtown Los Angeles, Hollywood, West Los Angeles, South-Central Los Angeles and parts of East Los Angeles, Mazer said.

About 1,000 workers were inside Terminal Annex when the power outage plunged most of the facility into darkness at 9:05 p.m. Thursday, postal officials said.

Spokesmen for the city Department of Water and Power said the blackout was apparently caused by a malfunctioning voltage line in the basement of the building. Power was fully restored by 5:29 a.m. Friday after DWP workers supplied some cable to postal maintenance crews to help repair the damaged line.

Further work on the line is expected to be completed today, postal officials added.

Postal authorities tried to minimize the delays in delivery by ordering some Terminal Annex employees to the building’s training area early Friday morning to continue sorting letter mail. In addition, more than 200,000 pieces of letter mail were shipped out to post offices in Long Beach, Inglewood and Los Angeles International Airport.

Mail Routes Not Affected

At smaller post offices, letter carriers were asked to do additional sorting, officials said. Mail routes were not affected.

Built in 1939 across from Union Station, Terminal Annex has been plagued in recent years by inadequate space, overcrowding and poorly configured work areas, while the volume of mail has continued to increase. The situation has forced postal officials to shift many activities to leased facilities around Los Angeles County, Mazer said.

The Postal Service’s board of governors, overseer of the federal mail system, last year agreed to build a new $151.6-million general post office on the site of the abandoned Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in South-Central Los Angeles to take over the major functions of Terminal Annex. It is scheduled to open in 1988.