Delivery companies must play catchup with delayed packages

Pamela Hammond is waiting for a small package that sits maddeningly out of her reach in a locked container less than a mile away, one of hundreds of thousands at a UPS facility that couldn't be delivered because of icy streets.

The parcel was mailed Monday for overnight delivery to her home in Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood, and it contains an automatic insulin pump that Hammond uses to control her type 1 diabetes.

"If it was a Christmas present, I could care less," said Hammond, 36. "But it's something I depend on to feel healthy and a normal person. It's a big deal to me."

UPS, located in her neighborhood, attempted delivery on Tuesday, but roads were so bad the driver never made it. The company said it will try again next week, when it expects to catch up on the backlog. Meanwhile, the insulin pump is stacked with 1,000 to 2,000 other packages in a container, making retrieval difficult, UPS spokesman Trevor Williams said.

"The weather put us severely behind," Williams said. "It will take a day or two, maybe three, to get back on track. We could do it pretty fast if conditions allow."

FedEx also acknowledged a backlog Friday, but it did not provide an estimate on the number of packages affected or the extent of the delay. On Christmas Day, the company opened its "express stations" across the country for four hours so people could pick up packages.

"Based on everything we're hearing, we're catching up," FedEx spokesman Jim McCluskey said.

No one was available at the U.S. Postal Service on Friday to discuss delays, but an employee at the bulk-mail facility in Seattle said drivers were running about a day behind in delivery of advertising.

Williams, of UPS, said the company's difficulties were confined to the Pacific Northwest. The region, he said, is less accustomed to dealing with heavy snowstorms than the Midwest.

Hammond wondered how many other people were waiting for essentials, and she said she blamed the city — not UPS — for not doing more to help delivery trucks get through.

"There's a point where you have to look at what's best for the citizens of Seattle," she said. "When they saw what they were doing wasn't working, they should have put down salt and got out and plowed like crazy."

City officials have been criticized for their handling of the storm, which dropped about 9 inches of snow on Seattle. The city plowed the streets with the intention of creating a "hard-pack" surface on main arteries that could be navigated by all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles and those with chains.

City trucks sprayed streets with de-icer and sprinkled more than 8,800 tons of sand on streets, but the strategy left much of the city unnavigable not only by delivery trucks but police, who use rear-wheel-drive vehicles.

The city refused to use salt out of concern it would harm creeks that feed Puget Sound. Mayor Greg Nickels gave the city a "B" for its snow-management efforts and laid the blame mostly on the storms.

Hammond, and others who complained about the policy, said the city should have had people like her in mind when responding to the storm. She's been getting by with injections of different types of insulin since Monday when her pump broke. The device automatically modulates her blood sugar and pumps insulin into her body through a tube. If her blood sugar goes too high or too low, she could become sick and die.

Her boyfriend stayed home from work for two days to accept delivery of the pump, while Hammond called repeatedly to check the parcel's status.

"They told me it will be Monday or Tuesday," she said. "We'll see ... "

Susan Kelleher: 206-464-2508 or skelleher@seattletimes.com