Winter Weather: Not Safe for Delivering, Southern Maine

Seacoast, N.H. -- It's another early morning for me and my daughter in New Hampshire. I have to be at work at 7am a couple towns away, 6 miles from my home. The radio alarm came on and I turned it off since it was on quite loud. My daughter in the next room was asleep. It's about 5am in the morning. After getting myself ready I heard the phone ring. I'm assuming it's one from Honeywell Instant Alert System. I answered it but the recorded message was cut off. We're expecting a lot of snow today, so it's safe to assume again that school will be closed.

Luckily the babysitter was a mile from home, and she's willing to take my daughter for the day. We bid goodbyes as I drove off to work dreading what's to come later in the day.

As we sorted our work according to addresses in order of delivery, our Postmaster went out to check for an accumulation. He came back ushering us to hurry, "Hurry, get out now." It was only 730am. We had more mail to put up but snow was already 6 inches. About 9am we loaded our carts that we used to transport mail trays out to our vehicles. Route 1 loaded his and continued cleaning snow off his van. He assisted me loading my trays as I was cleaning mine. Route 2 left already and Route 3 was the last one to leave. My route was one of the easier route, but today I can't be sure.

The wiper blades was set on intermittent level one. The back wiper blades stayed active since driving requires clear visibility at all times. Sitting on the right side as I've been trained to do and unbuckled I went to my first box, a couple hundred yards from the post office.

With my hazard lights on I attempted the first mail box delivery, which was successful.

Visibility was about 500 hundred feet, almost a whiteout as heavy snow was coming down. The temperature was in the twenties. Not sticky but still dangerous.

The first two boxes were ok, but when I was about to make a sharp right turn to do some cluster boxes, the break failed to activate and I went by the street instead. Time was of the essence so turning back was not something we can afford to do. So in that case I continued to the next ones. Another cluster boxes I came upon did not get plowed or shoveled yet. I did not have the right attire to go in the snow thigh deep. I'm a petite woman. So I turned around and attempted boxes I could get to. One box I got to on the main road was surrounded by a foot of snow already. It took me about 7 minutes until I can loosen my way back onto the road. Still not too far from the post office, but it's already a nightmare being like this. A lot of the boxes I had to pass because I could end up stuck again. Ofcourse the nightmare wasn't over.

Used to wearing seatbelts most of my life made that day a big risk, when you were about to go down a hill on the right side with no seat belts on driving with one hand and using a left foot. I then noticed a police suv zoomed by. There must have been something going on that way. I've been on this road before and have seen the accidents, I was not excluded. Do not break I told myself. Breaking can be dangerous especially on roads like this. Just go slow and keep the foot on the accelerator. Holding my breath in fear as I was praying, I went down the first slope of treachery.

There was flashing lights and one side of the road blocked halfway up the next hill. That's it I'm turning around I told myself.

Back at the office I told my manager, I was so scared I have to reconsider my job as a carrier. I didn't feel safe.