By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Maurice Lamontagne waited days for his wife’s seizure medication to be delivered.

From their Sabattus Street apartment, he watched for a mail carrier who never came. When his 76-year-old wife ran out of medication, he borrowed a few pills from a friend who took the same prescription. Then he waited again for the mail.

“When they didn’t get here, I was wondering,” he said.

Eventually, a neighbor told him mail wasn’t being delivered to their apartment building at all. When Lamontagne called the local post office, he said, he was told the carrier couldn’t get to the mailbox on his porch.

His driveway was clear. But the city sidewalk was covered in snow.

The Postal Service says it’s delivering mail to as many customers as it can. But carrier accidents are already up in Maine this year, it says, and it won’t put its workers in further jeopardy by making them cross messy sidewalks.

Lewiston Public Works says it is clearing the sidewalks as fast as it possibly can. Crews prioritize their jobs, Director Paul Boudreau said, but if the post office informed them about delivery trouble spots the city might be able to move them up the list.

Lamontagne just wants the two sides to work together so he and his wife can count on getting their pills.

“I think something should be done between the city and the post office,” said Lamontage, 78. “I don’t care about the mail. I care about the medications.”

A challenge’

Leanne Payeur, spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service in Maine, said this has been an especially bad winter for mail deliveries.

The barrage of March snowstorms has meant messy roads, slippery sidewalks and towering snowbanks that blocked visibility. When the situation is dangerous, Payeur said, mail carriers are not supposed to deliver.

Problems have popped up across the state. In Lewiston, the latest trouble spots have been on East Avenue, Main Street and Sabattus Street, where sidewalks weren’t cleared and traffic was too heavy to allow carriers to walk on the side of the road.

“It’s been a challenge for our people, no question,” Payeur said.

Carriers decide day by day where they can safely go and which home will get its mail.

Payeur doesn’t blame public works staffs for the situation.

“I know they’re doing the best they can,” she said. “But we have to put the safety of our people first.”

At Lewiston Public Works, director Boudreau said this winter has taken its toll on his workers, too. They usually clean up after 10 winter storms. This year they’ve had 19.

His crews have worked 10-hour shifts, day and night, since the last storm. Workers prioritize their efforts: School sidewalks get attention first, then congested areas, heavily traveled sidewalks and residential areas.

Boudreau said no one has complained to him about mail problems. His crews are working as hard as they possibly can, but he understands people rely on deliveries for medications and other necessities. If the post office called about a bad area, he said, he might be able to give that spot priority.

“We would try to accommodate that,” he said.

That was news to Payeur.

“It is good information to know they would be receptive to a call from us, and I will certainly share that with the postmaster in Lewiston and surrounding towns,” she said. “We don’t like to tell people how to do their jobs. They (public works) are professionals at what they do and we assume they’ll get to it when they can.”

In the meantime, Lamontagne’s wife has her medication. A neighbor went to the post office to get it.

Now Lamontagne is waiting for his own pills. He hopes this wait will be shorter.

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