New Orleans, LA – Post Offices will be open and mail delivery returns Friday to New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette and surrounding postal facilities where Isaac’s torrential rains, severe winds and flooding had forced offices to close.

Friday’s mail will consist of Social Security checks, medicine and “mail we could not deliver on Tuesday,” according to Louisiana District Manager Bruno Tristan. “We will attempt check delivery on Friday until 3 pm. Then, checks and other mail will be available at postal facilities from 4 pm to 6 pm,” said Tristan. Customers will be required to present government issued identification such as a driver’s license.

Tristan said Saturday delivery will take place as normal, but customers may pick up remaining Social Security checks on hand at postal facilities on Saturday from 4 pm to 6 pm. “We want to make every effort to get those checks into the hands of our customers who need them before the holiday on Monday.”

Maintenance and Tour 2 mail processing employees at the New Orleans plant have already returned to work. All other employees are required to call the National Employee Emergency Hotline at 1-888-363-7462 to learn when they should report for duty. Customer service employees assigned to the New Orleans Post Office should report at their regularly scheduled time on August 31.

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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 151 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With nearly 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 35th in the 2011 Fortune 500. In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service was ranked number one in overall service performance, out of the top 20 wealthiest nations in the world, Oxford Strategic Consulting. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

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