Lately, as cars drive down Westport roads, all that can be seen by passengers are barriers of piled snow. The streets resemble bowling lanes delineated by gutter bumpers made of foot-high mounds of snow. A few hints of color speckle the snow banks every couple of yards; barely visible mailboxes peek out from the snow.

The accumulation of several feet of snow around town has been a burden to many members of the community. One particularly affected group is the postal workers. As snow stacks reach higher heights, mailboxes around town have been buried. As plows work to push snow away from the road, they often knock mailboxes from their wooden posts.

When mail carriers cannot see a house’s mailbox, they are obligated to bring the mail back to the post office.

“We do not leave mail without a box. Without a box, you won’t get your mail,” Joe Salomone, a postal worker at the US Postal Service office on Route 1 in Westport said.

Because of the high amount of snowfall this winter, more people around town are failing to receive their mail.

“It is worse this year than in the past, we have gotten a lot of [phone] calls about people not getting their mail,” Salomone said.

However, the safety of the carrier is the most important consideration for the Postal Service. “If the carrier doesn’t think he can get down a road, we don’t want them to risk it, especially in those [mail] trucks.”

In these instances, the carriers are required to bring the mail back to the carrier headquarters, which for Westport is the Westport Carrier Annex located at 234 Westport Ave., Norwalk. Residents who do not get a mail delivery can either pick up their mail at that location or wait for it to be delivered once conditions allow for it.

Although blocked mailboxes are frequently the result of snowplows ramming into them or pushing snow against them, Salomone says the plow drivers cannot be blamed. “It happens,” he said. “Their job is to get the snow off the road.”

It is the citizens’ job to clear their mailboxes out from under snow. And that is what many Westporters have been doing. Shoveling snow from around their mailboxes will help to ensure that their mail is delivered timely.

Nevertheless, there are some people who have failed to uncover the mailboxes from the snow, or have been unable to fix a mailbox broken by a plow.

“People get really aggravated, when they don’t get their mail. A lot of aggravated people have called for their mail,” Salomone said. However, unless a mailbox is visible and accessible to mail carrier trucks, letters, magazines and postcards, will be left waiting at the Carrier Annex.