In an important step forward for recovery efforts in Colorado, U.S. Senator Michael Bennet announced today that the post office in Jamestown is set to reopen this Saturday, providing much-needed relief to residents that have been without mail service since September’s devastating floods.
Upon hearing from city leaders the importance of getting the post office up and running, Bennet and his staff have worked with the United States Postal Service (USPS) to restore mail service to the hard-hit community. Last week, Bennet sent a letter to Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe urging him to explore any and all options to reopen the office.
“After witnessing firsthand the destruction in Jamestown, we’ve been amazed by how much progress has been made in the past four months,” Bennet said. “The scheduled reopening of this post office represents another step forward for this resilient community that has shown such a strong commitment to recovering and rebuilding. We are thankful to the USPS for working with us to restore much-needed mail service to the town.”
In his letter last week to the Postmaster General, Bennet urged USPS to pursue a creative work around to bring the post office back online as soon as possible, even though running water had not yet been restored to the facility. “To offer one concrete example, Mayor Schoedinger has suggested that a cistern could perhaps be installed at minimal cost in order to meet the water needs of the post office,” Bennet wrote last week. USPS pursued this suggestion and installed a water cistern, giving the facility sufficient water access to open.
The post office should be operational this weekend, postal officials said, provided a final inspection tomorrow goes smoothly.
Bennet has worked closely with Governor Hickenlooper, state agencies, and the entire Congressional delegation since the flooding began to ensure that Coloradans have every resource needed to rebuild. In October, the senators helped lead a delegation-wide effort that successfully lifted the cap on the amount of emergency transportation resources Colorado could access to rebuild damaged infrastructure. Bennet also helped secure $62.8 million from HUD’s CDBG-DR program last year to finance ongoing flood recovery work in Colorado.