DALLAS - Letter carriers for at least two U.S. Post Office branches in North Texas said broken ice machines at their stations make mail delivery dangerous as the region approaches three consecutive weeks of temperatures at or above 100-degrees. "This is the third hottest summer on record," said Ken Cornell, National Association of Letter Carriers. "I don't consider it a luxury. To me it's a necessity." Cornell and more than a hundred colleagues at two stations are working without ice right now. The machine at his branch, Plano's Northwest Station in the 3900-block of Hedgecoxe Road, stopped working weeks ago. News 8 has learned the same thing happened at another postal branch in the 500-block of Centre Street near Jefferson Boulevard in North Oak Cliff. Cornell said, like many, he needs extra ice because his home refrigerator can't keep up. "I've got an ice maker and it can't produce enough ice that I need for work," Cornell added. Cornell said he relies on ice to fill a thermos everyday, plus an additional cooler, and even an expensive portable cooling system he bought to sit on in the summer since postal vans don't have air conditioning. But the U.S. Postal Service said it does not have to provide ice to employees even though it has done so for years to help letter carriers during the heat of the summer. "We really apologize for this because we know it's difficult to deliver mail in triple-digit weather so what we want to try to do is make our carriers as comfortable as possible," said McKinney Boyd, spokesman, U.S. Postal Service. These two broken ice machines are isolated incidents, Boyd added. The machines aren't repairable, he said, so both will be replaced. Oak Cliff should get a new machine by Wednesday and Plano's should arrive by next week, Boyd promised. Cornell and other carriers hope they arrive in time before someone gets hurt in the heat.
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