The U.S. Postal Service has urged residents in several Midwestern states to use extreme caution when opening rural roadside mailboxes after a series of pipe bombs began exploding in receptacles last Friday.
Both customers and postal employees have heeded the message.
One Iowa resident rigged a long string to the catch on his mailbox door, stepped back to a hopefully safe distance, pulled the string to open the door and then gathered his mail. And one postal employee reportedly arrived to work in Iowa wearing safety goggles and earplugs.
Postal officials have asked residents of the affected areas to make adjustments to mailboxes mounted at the curb, the most vulnerable type of receptacle. Officials asked residents to remove the mailbox door or adjust the door so that it can’t be easily closed.
The postal service said on Sunday that it has instructed its carriers in Iowa and Nebraska to not deliver to a mailbox that is not in an open position. Illinois carriers are expected to follow suit. Mail delivery was suspended in some areas over the weekend but resumed Monday after carriers were briefed on safety.
Other types of mailboxes were not affected for delivery such as those attached to residential buildings, boxes that open with a key and businesses that do not require delivery to roadside, rural mailboxes.
“If you see wires, strings or any other suspicious materials, on, in, or around your mailbox, or if you see any suspicious activity around mailboxes, contact local law enforcement personnel immediately,” the USPS said in a statement.
The Direct Marketing Associated expressed confidence in the ongoing investigation.
“Obviously it’s a tragedy that anyone got hurt in this,” said DMA spokesman Lou Mastria. “Beyond that we are happy that it’s in law enforcement’s hands and we’re confident that these perpetrators will be apprehended.”
The series of explosions have unnerved a public and postal service still reeling from the anthrax scares that killed five people last year and the fact that the mail delivery system has proven an easy target for terror.
Fifteen nearly identical pipe bombs were left in mailboxes in Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska. At least four postal employees and two elderly residents were wounded in Illinois and Iowa when the bombs exploded.
The incidents are under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Postal Inspection Service and state and local law enforcement officials.
The bombs were reportedly made from three-quarter-inch steel pipe about six inches long and one inch in diameter. Officials are calling the acts domestic terrorism by one individual who is angry with the U.S. government.
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