European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 23, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse Pm t. A ass i .1 Atseff airman 1st class Melanie Russell adds another bulging bag to the rising Mountain of packages and mail arriving at the Frankfurt Aerial postal terminal. A amps Jim Morhaim mail workers could use Santa s elves by Luke Britt staff writer Frankfurt Germany a done to despair if you Haven t received Many Christmas cards or packages from Home. Mom still loves you. Her gift is just trapped in an Avalanche of mail at the Frankfurt Aerial postal Are trying to process More mail each Day than they normally would in a half month. And they done to expect things to change before the end of Jan. Uary. A a a we re moving about 1.2 million pounds of mail a Day a said capt. Vincent Scott officer in charge of the terminal. A in the Middle of the year we move around 2 million pounds a postal officials said they began plan Ning in August for the Christmas Rush but never anticipated the enormous volume of mail flowing into and out of Europe. The Frankfurt terminal is Europe scentral processing Point for military mail. Christmas obviously is the primary reason for the mail Quot pileup but master sgt. Jack Fields the terminals chief of operations said that hand in hand with Christmas is operation desert shield a desert shield has caused people to be More aware and concerned about the military people they know overseas a Fields said a families Are keeping in touch More writing More letters and sending More packages Quot the result is a backlog of packages cards and letters which depending on whom you ask ranges from one to three weeks. Mail bins literally bulge with items. Dozens of packed trailers form a Peculiar gridlock in the parking lot As one mail truck leaves empty another twice its size and full pulls Soldier walking on a conveyor Belt because mail is overflowing from the bins into the aisles said a do we have More mail than we know what to do with that a putting in lightly. Just look at this a additional civilian workers have been hired reservists have been called up a few people have volunteered and some have simply been1 commandeered from army and air Force units across Germany Scott said 90 people a Day Are working in the terminal More than double the Normal number a a we be put our office workers out there processing mail. We re working 12-hour Days and we re doing the Best we can a he said. J. With so Many people and so much mail there a hardly room for the workers to work. Only the office and main Hall run Ning through the terminal Are free of mail. But the rest of the 14,000-Square-foot building is fair game for the storage of the mail of the military in Europe. 1 All the mail flown into Frankfurt is brought to the terminal by trailer. Mail trucked to the terminal from bases in Europe is also stored in trailers Fields said. There is so much mail now however that there Are no More trailers on which to put it. A a a a a a a a a if we can keep the processing area Clear we can move the mail More efficiently Quot Fields said a but if we done to have trailers we have to bring it in Here and we can to move around All the mail Quot one Way to Deal with the Lack of trailers is to process the mail right off the vehicles. Fields said with a backlog however that causes mail to be processed out of sequence a it happens a not very often a Fields cd a we try very hard to avoid it. But we be had to go Back to drawing Board s4s Jhm a a rtt Eim master sgt Luther Jones and airman 1st class Priscilla Vanderpool pull heavy bags stuffed with mail off carts outside the terminal. Almost every Day to handle this based on the amount of mail still coming in on top of the backlog Fields believes that in Wilt be near the end of january before the terminal operation returns to Normal after it recovers from Christmas however there a the possibility that the Gulf crisis will deteriorate into War the Frankfurt terminal would then become a primary processing Point for supplies Pound for the persian Gulf from Europe Fields said
