USPS provides tour of McAllen processing facility during busy holiday season

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McALLEN — The U.S. Postal Service opened its doors for a behind-the-scenes look Wednesday at the processing and distribution center here as the flow of mail and packages continues to grow during the holiday season.

Amid the hum of machinery and the whir of conveyor belts, Plant Manager Brandon Batiste carefully navigated the rarely seen facility as his employees worked to meet the increased demand.

“On an average day for delivery processing of letters, we’ll process between 850,000 and 1.6 million letters,” Batiste said. “During peak season, it does increase.”

The tour comes less than a month after the U.S. Postal Service on Nov. 19 announced that the processing and distribution center would remain in McAllen. Over the course of the past year, the agency had studied moving processing and distribution operations to San Antonio.

The processing center is in the midst of peak season, which Batiste said begins around Nov. 15. He said that this year’s peak season actually began a bit sooner as a result of the presidential election.

The workload has only increased since.

Batiste, who has been the McAllen plant manager for just over a year, led local media through the facility to show the continued efforts made to meet the holiday demand.

He stood near the the delivery bar code sorter, a large machine that quickly sorts letters into letter trays for specific streets. The machines are able to process between 25,000 and 35,000 letters in an hour.

“We just want everyone to know that we are working diligently to make sure that everyone gets their mail on time,” he said.

“We do not close, and it’s always running,” he added.

The facility has 160 employees and operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Around this time, he said that more personnel will be brought in to help with the increased demand.

“This is one of the opportunities where we get a moment to show how well our operation runs, how, what are the efforts that we utilize and all of the measures that we take to get the packages to our loved ones all the time, because we are customers as well,” Strategic Communications Specialist Nikki Johnson said.

She said that the agency wanted to show how the processing center is operating and remind people that they are making efforts to ensure that holiday mail is delivered in a timely manner.

“We’re making every effort to ensure that all of the packages are there before the deadlines,” she said. “You know, our message this year is, ‘The sooner the better.’ So if you do have packages that you are intending to send to your loved ones, we do have suggested mail by dates that are placed online.”

All of the shipping deadlines can be found by visiting www.usps.com.

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