{"id":4716,"date":"2012-07-10T22:34:39","date_gmt":"2012-07-11T03:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=4716"},"modified":"2012-07-10T22:34:39","modified_gmt":"2012-07-11T03:34:39","slug":"praise-for-letter-carriers-participation-in-cri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2012\/07\/10\/praise-for-letter-carriers-participation-in-cri\/","title":{"rendered":"Praise for letter carriers\u2019 participation in Cities\u2019 Readiness Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A Postal Regulatory Commission hearing today focused partly on the Cities\u2019 Readiness Initiative, a program that uses the Postal Service’s universal network and the voluntary participation of letter carriers to protect Americans in the event of a biological incident, such as a terrorist attack.<\/p>\n

Officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Postal Service Postal and the PRC praised National Association of Letter Carriers President Fredric Rolando and rank-and-file letter carriers for their role in the program.<\/p>\n

During the commission’s monthly meeting, a USPS representative said that the unions representing both city and rural letter carriers\u2014the NALC and the National Rural Letter Carriers\u2019 Association, respectively\u2014are “highly engaged\u201d in providing volunteers for the initiative, and that NALC leadership, from \u201cPresident Rolando to the branches and the shop stewards,\u201d have been \u201cvery instrumental\u201d in making this program work.<\/p>\n

The program, which thus far includes Louisville, Minneapolis, Seattle, Philadelphia, Boston and part of San Diego County, involves letter carriers being trained to deliver medicines to residents in the aftermath of a biological event.<\/p>\n

The Postal Service network was described as being ideally suited for this important effort to protect Americans\u2014more so than any other institution. The Cities’ Readiness Initiative was cited as an example of the value of the universal network\u2014and of type of roles letter carriers play beyond delivering mail, often to little public attention. The type of inter-agency cooperation within the federal government that makes such a program possible was lauded, and cited as something that should be built on.<\/p>\n

The CRI is designed to help reduce residents\u2019 exposure to a biological threat by encouraging them to stay in their homes, with letter carriers bringing vital medicines to them. The role of HHS in the initiative is to manage the safety of the letter carrier volunteers by making sure they have access to special medical kits that allow them to inoculate themselves first before venturing out to deliver medication to their patrons.<\/p>\n

The Cities\u2019 Readiness Initiative \u201cproves that the Postal Service is about more than delivery of hard copy mail,\u201d PRC Chairman Ruth Goldway said. \u201cOne of the [postal] network\u2019s strengths is that it\u2019s better suited than other delivery methods, with letter carriers familiar with every street.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven during the recent heat wave,\u201d she noted, \u201cletter carriers got the mail through,\u201d something she said demonstrates the importance of the USPS\u2019 unique infrastructure. \u201cI hope we can build on this network in other not-so-dramatic situations, such as fires, floods and food-poisoning outbreaks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Postal Regulatory Commission hearing today focused partly on the Cities\u2019 Readiness Initiative, a program that uses the Postal Service’s universal network and the voluntary participation of letter carriers to protect Americans in the event of a biological incident, such as a terrorist attack. Officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nalc-news","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4716"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4719,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716\/revisions\/4719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}