HOUSTON — The mail delays at USPS processing centers across the Houston area continue to plague residents and those waiting on mail shipped from Houston.
A soldier from the Houston area tells KHOU 11 he thinks a package he’s been waiting for may have received an incorrect bar code in Houston and that’s delayed the delivery.
Army Sgt. Jesse Marquart explained that he’s been waiting on a package since Jan. 30 and that his family sent it from Cypress to where he’s stationed in Central America.
“I didn’t think that it would be almost a month later and I’m actually still waiting,” he said, speaking to reporter Stephen Goin on the phone.
Marquart said his family waited to send it because they had read about the Houston mail delays KHOU 11 has reported on since December. The package contained a few gifts for some of the soldiers he’s deployed with as well as a journal he and his wife send back and forth to each other.
“It’s something physical we can send to each other instead of just texting,” he said. “She’d been wanting to send it but I told her to hold on because of the news we saw coming out of Houston.”
When the package was ultimately sent, USPS tracking data shows it did stay in the Houston area for three days at the South Houston Local Processing Center in Missouri City. However, it left Houston after that – still, Marquart wonders if the city’s mail system played a part in the delay.
“I don’t know if it got routed somehow incorrectly in Houston, and I’m not sure if that’s a human error or these new machines that are supposed to be getting on board,” he said.
After Houston, the package looped through the system: first to Miami, then to Honduras, then to a military base - but not the one where Marquart is stationed. Following that, the package retraced its steps and went back through Honduras to Miami.
As of Feb. 27, Marquart said the package has still not been delivered. In the past, he said he’s traveled further for deployments and gotten mail sooner.
“I’ve been deployed to the Middle East twice and when I’ve gotten Amazon or packages from home mailed there, they were faster than two weeks,” he said.
For now, Marquart said he still has hopes the package sent in January will get to him -- even though it’s taking a little longer than expected.
“I’ve had packages show up more than a year later, so I think this one will make it," Marquart said. "It’s just the routing that looks a little wonky to me."
Are you having issues with the post office? Send an email to mailproblems@khou.com and let us know. You can see our coverage of delays at Houston-area USPS processing centers on KHOU.com/PostalProblems.