Busiest mailing week of the year underway for U.S. Postal Service

Christmas is just 9 days away and the rush is on to get the packages delivered on time.

U.S. Postal Service (USPS) crews have been working around the clock to get the packages delivered. This holiday season, the Reno region postal workers are seeing anywhere between 50-75 pallets a day. Each pallet holds at least 130 packages. During non-holidays, workers usually see 25-30 pallets.

USPS nationwide is expecting to deliver about 800 million packages during the holiday season. In total, USPS is expecting to deliver nearly 13 billion letters, cards, and packages from Thanksgiving to the New Year.

To deal with the rush locally, USPS has hired 20 people for the Reno area and 50 for all of northern Nevada.

Randi Jones, a supervisor with the Reno Post Office, says they are asking customers to be prepared for long lines. When it comes to porch pirates stealing your packages, they have a solution for that:

"Sign up for special delivery instructions,” said Jones. “It can be held at the post office or you can advise the carrier to deliver it to your neighbor. The other thing is make sure you sign up for informed delivery, especially this time of the year. So you know what greeting cards might be coming, it also alerts you to what packages are coming your way."

Sometimes these packages may be delivered at night, so USPS is asking people to keep the porch lights on.

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