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In the days since Hurricane Helene made landfall in Western North Carolina, about 1.2 million people have lost their postal delivery service, and could see that disrupted for weeks to come.
The U.S. Postal Service announced the suspension of mail delivery operations in the areas with zip codes beginning with 286, 287, 288, and 289, and has not given any updates on when it will resume.
The most obvious barrier is a lack of mailboxes or even homes to deliver to in flood-ravaged parts of the state. The North Carolina Department of Transportation also estimates as many as 390 road closures including parts of Interstate 40.
“Is there an address remaining to which it can be delivered?” said Thomas Birkland, the former director for the Infrastructure Management and Hazard Response program at the National Science Foundation. “Is there a functioning post office available to process the mail, to deliver it? Are there people available to deliver it? And are the roads open so that you can deliver the mail? If any one of those answers is no, then the mail is going to be delayed.”
Birkland said one way researchers measured the impact of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was by assessing the extent to which mail was deliverable.
“If the house is destroyed, or the business is destroyed, there’s no point to which it can deliver the mail, and so [the postal service would] have to hold on to it,” Birkland said.
Philip Bogenberger, spokesperson for the North Carolina and Virginia districts of the U.S. Postal Service, said in a statement that the agency is working to restore delivery service to western North Carolina.
“The safety of our customers and employees is the Postal Service’s top priority in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene,” Bogenberger wrote. “At this time, we are still assessing damages and impacts. We are dispatching recovery teams to affected areas.”
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Medicine by Mail
A major challenge facing disaster relief officials is the delivery of medications in a timely manner.
NBC reported in 2020 that 26 million people receive their medication through mail delivery services. In a study by the University of Michigan, 35% of participants said their insurance agency requires them to receive their medication by mail.
Will Holland, director of sales and business development at Realo Drugs, said few could have predicted the level of devastation.
Realo primarily serves eastern North Carolina through its storefronts, but its specialty care pharmacy ships across the state and to 22 others. Its patients often have complex and rare conditions that require specific transport and delivery methods.
That involves UPS, FedEx, and the U.S. Postal Service, Holland said, so they are frequently monitoring the forecast.
“We had no idea that the western part of the state was going to be—I don’t think anybody did—hit the way that it was,” Holland said. “So we did have medications that were sent out last week that were held at facilities. Some got delivered. Some have not.”
Now the company is contacting patients and trying to make sure that it has a working address before attempting to deliver. Most have been able to provide alternate addresses, although there are some Realo hasn’t been able to reach.
In eastern North Carolina, the pharmacy is no stranger to hurricanes. Holland said in past storms employees have had to hand-deliver medication to patients.
Holland said one of their patients traveled to Tennessee to get cell phone service, and pharmacists just happened to call while they had reception. The patient was able to provide the address of a family member’s home.
Natural disasters also exacerbate supply chain issues. While insurance agencies often make exceptions to refill policies during states of emergency, pharmacies may not have the medication on hand to meet the demand—which is why they often advise people to keep a small supply of medication on hand as part of their emergency planning, Birkland said.
But as he notes, some medications are too expensive or difficult to obtain extra supplies. Nor did anyone predict the extent of this storm’s damage. “I don’t think folks in western North Carolina really expected an event of this magnitude,” he said.
When Your Ballots Are Absentee
Bogenberger also noted that the U.S. Postal Service is communicating with local boards of elections to ensure the delivery of another vital resource—absentee ballots.
For many in the state, the 2024 election is already underway if they vote by mail. The first mail-in ballots were shipped on September 24 after a legal battle between the State Board of Elections and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. caused mail-in ballots to be delayed by over two weeks.
In a news briefing Tuesday, Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said the board is working with emergency management officials and is in contact with the postal service to deliver outstanding absentee ballots.
In previous years, absentee ballots were to be counted by officials as long as they were postmarked by Election Day and arrived to local boards of elections within three days after. This year, any ballots received after 7:30 p.m. on November 5 cannot be included in the count.
Brinson Bell said if there appears to be a significant delay in the delivery of absentee ballots, the board could decide to ask the General Assembly for an extension on the receipt of absentee ballots. She said only a small portion of the storm-affected population planned to vote by absentee ballot, so the board and the postal service will work together to assess whether that’s a legislative ask worth making.
“We think there’s many paths that we could take, and so we are just trying to determine what would be most beneficial to the voters,” Brinson Bell said.
Brinson Bell said she expects there will be voters in the area able to vote by mail, but she will work with emergency management to identify those who cannot and take further action for people in those highly affected areas.
Gerry Cohen, a member of the Wake County Board of Elections, said Wake alone has sent out about 40,000 absentee ballots, with about 250 of them being sent to the 25 counties impacted by Hurricane Helene.
Elections officials are concerned that some may have already received ballots but are now in flooded homes, or the recipients have been displaced. Others may have filled them out already and returned ballots to now flooded mailboxes.
Voters can use the BallotTrax portal to locate where their ballot is in the process of shipping and its receipt by boards of elections. They can also reach out to their county board of elections for help in tracking the ballot. If one seems lost, the State Board of Elections can cancel the original and send a new one at the voter’s request through the absentee ballot portal as long as it is submitted by October 29 at 5 p.m. Voters may also choose to vote in-person at their home precinct in lieu of the ballot they requested.
Cohen highlighted college students whose homes are in these mountain counties as likely to be disproportionately affected by delayed ballots.
If students originally from western North Carolina decide they want to vote in their college town instead of relying on their absentee ballot to arrive, they can change their voter registration address online until October 11. After that date, registration can be changed in-person at early voting sites with a proof of address, such as an electric bill.
“Those students who are trying to vote by mail from those 25 counties could experience delays, so I think people should allow extra time,” Cohen said. “But if a student is voting in Wake County, whether it’s because they choose to register here, or maybe they went to high school here, then they should not be affected in any way by the disaster in western North Carolina.”
Ben McNeely contributed to this reporting.
Kate Denning is a student at N.C. State University studying communication and religious studies. She currently serves as the editor-in-chief of the student-run newspaper, Technician.