13 Cities and States Where the Post Office Has Suspended Delivery

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 11:51AM EST · Published Jan 30, 6:25AM EST

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13 Cities and States Where the Post Office Has Suspended Delivery — © Thinkstock

Parts of the Midwestern United States will be so cold that the U.S. Postal Service will suspend delivery today across vast areas of cities and states. Most are in 13 areas where the wind chill factor is likely to drop to 20 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. In others, the number may go as low as 60 degrees below zero.

Exposure to extremely cold weather can cause frostbite and skin and tissue damage within minutes. Hypothermia can cause worse problems, and under the worst conditions can be deadly.

According to the Mayo Clinic:

Hypothermia is a medical emergency that occurs when your body loses heat faster than it can produce heat, causing a dangerously low body temperature. Normal body temperature is around 98.6 F (37 C). Hypothermia occurs as your body temperature falls below 95 F (35 C). When your body temperature drops, your heart, nervous system and other organs can’t work normally. Left untreated, hypothermia can eventually lead to complete failure of your heart and respiratory system and eventually to death.

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Protection against extreme cold only has limited results when temperatures drop well below zero and wind chills below −10 degrees. Experts warn that people should wear layers of clothing. Ski masks offer face protection, but not for long.

The number of postal carriers who could be exposed to extreme cold today and tomorrow numbers into the thousands. The Postal Service says there are about 15 carriers per ZIP code. The 13 states and cities where the Postal Service will not deliver are based on three-digit ZIP codes, which can contain several five-digit ZIP codes where the 15 carriers work.

At 10 p.m. yesterday, the Postal Service suspended some deliveries today due to extreme cold. Its management said:

Weather forecasters are warning of dangerously cold conditions in parts of the nation. Some places could see wind chill readings as low as 60 below zero. Due to this arctic outbreak and concerns for the safety of USPS employees, the Postal Service is suspending delivery Jan. 30 in the following 3-digit ZIP Code locations:

Michigan: 486-491, 493-499

Indiana: 460-469, 472-475, 478, 479

Chicago: 606-608

Lakeland: 530-532, 534, 535, 537-539, 541-545, 549, 600, 602, 601, 611

Detroit: 480-485, 492

Central Illinois: 601, 603 – 605, 609, 613, 614, 616, 617

Northern Ohio (Cleveland and Lima areas): 441, 458

Ohio Valley (Cincinnati and Columbus areas): 452, 430-432

Western Pennsylvania: (Erie and Bradford areas): 165, 169-177, 188

Northland: 540, 546-548, 550, 551, 553-564, 566

Hawkeye: 500-514, 520-528, 612

Dakotas: 580-588, 570-577

Eastern Nebraska: 680-689

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.