ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – A busy west county post office closed without warning, with armed police blocking the entrance Monday, leaving customers frustrated with the lack of information given to residents.
If you stop by the Town and Country post office, you can see the cause for alarm—the building is closed. Postal police have a vehicle backed up to the front doors, blocking the entrance.
The big blue mail boxes for drive-thru drop-off out front are sealed shut and marked “not in use.”
“This facility is closed until further notice. You are requested to leave the property,” police repeatedly shouted at approaching customers Tuesday. There was no information given on why, how long, or whether customers’ packages might have been contaminated in some way.
“I walked up, I told them I had a P.O. box here,” customer Scott Guetshow said. “They wouldn’t let me inside the building. I have no idea what’s going on.”
Customers kept asking FOX 2 for help or information. We told them what we could.
A USPS spokesman said only that, “the United States Postal Service has implemented an emergency suspension of the Town and Country Post Office, effective immediately. Out of an abundance of caution, USPS will not operate out of this facility in order to evaluate and mitigate suspected environmental concerns.”
“Maybe somebody has threatened them with a bomb,” worried customer Pat Ober, who came to mail a package, said. “There’s a lot of things going on which really makes the public uneasy. They don’t tell you enough to understand and we really deserve to know.”
Mail trucks were allowed to come and go.
Town and Country’s mayor said he’d been told of a hazard materials response. The city’s police chief said officers responded to the scene Monday and that there was no reason to believe the public was in danger.
Further information would have to come from the postal service, they said.
FOX 2 contacted Congresswoman Ann Wagner, as the post office is in her district.
Her staff finally did get answers, saying that a mercury spill from a package was the reason for the closure. The sender did not disclose that the package contained mercury. The post office is expected to be closed for at least seven to 10 days.
Wagner calls that time frame “completely unacceptable.” She’s calling for a contingency plan for quicker delivery of vital mail, which includes things like medications or paychecks.
Customers have been left frustrated, saying it shouldn’t have taken their congresswoman getting involved for them to find out what’s really going on with their post office.
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