A little before 2 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 7, half a dozen Summit County residents stood in line at the Dillon Post Office waiting to pick up packages.

A sign next to the customer service window, which was closed, said that staff would return from lunch at 2 p.m. But by the time 2:30 p.m. had passed, a few more customers had joined the line, and two had left, but the customer service window still had not opened.

“You can’t rely on it,” Summit County resident Lyn Manton-Krueger said of the post office as she left. “We definitely have a problem in our county. It’s crazy.”

A few minutes before 2:30 p.m., Tom High, another resident waiting in line, knocked on the metal divider, “Are you guys opening?” No response. Finally, when High banged again a few minutes later, a staff member answered from the back: No, the post office would not be opening the customer service window Thursday afternoon.

High said that as a ski patroller, he is waiting on bindings to arrive in the mail and is hoping that they arrive before he has to start work – since he requires them to do his job. He said another package he had delivered to the Dillon Post Office got sent back because the post office was closed every time he tried to pick it up.

“I’ve been on a tight work schedule. I’ve come in in the afternoons to pick up my packages, and they’ve been closed a few times during operating hours, which obviously haven’t been their operating hours,” High said. “This has been an ongoing problem for years. I’ve lived here in Summit County on and off for winter seasons for 10-plus years, but this is worse than I’ve ever seen it.”

The Dillon Post Office again experienced unexpected closures this week, a week after both the Dillon and Silverthorne post offices experienced unannounced closures. The U.S. Postal Service did not return a request for comment about this week’s closures.

U.S. Postal Service spokesperson James Boxrud said that the unexpected closures last week were due to two staff members contracting the flu. He said at the time that he was hopeful that regular service would return this week.

But that didn’t happen, at least not at the Dillon Post Office. Throughout the week this week, signs were posted to the Dillon Post Office doors warning customers that the facility would be closed in the afternoon due to an “employee emergency.”

Summit County residents, especially those in Silverthorne and Dillon, have complained about a lack of reliable mail service from the U.S. Postal Service for years.

Most recently, customers in Summit County experienced interruptions to mail delivery in late August, after burglaries were reported at the Dillon and Silverthorne post offices. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service postal inspector Melissa Atkin said Wednesday that there is no update on the post office burglaries at this time as the case remains under investigation.

The Dillon and Silverthorne post offices also experienced issues during the 2022-23 winter season. For weeks that winter, the Dillon Post Office restricted P.O. box access due to vandalism to the post office building. Meanwhile, Summit County residents also reported delays in receiving mail, including bills and other important documents, that winter.

Late last year, an audit published by the U.S. Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General found that residents of Colorado mountain towns experienced significantly lower on-time performance, especially for package deliveries, than the rest of the state. The audit identified hiring and retention as the biggest challenges for the U.S. Postal Service facilities in Colorado mountain towns.

With the busy holiday season approaching, Boxrud said, “We’re probably, especially in that area, always going to have long lines, especially in the winter months.”

But he added, “We’re sitting a little better than a couple years ago.”

Whereas disruptions to mail delivery during the 2022-23 winter were caused by issues with contractors, Boxrud said those issues have been resolved since the post offices began working with a new contractor.

Moreover, Boxrud noted that while staffing in Summit County has improved only slightly, there is more staffing in the Colorado Rocky Mountain region, including in Evergreen and Golden, to provide backup in a pinch.

“Staffing hasn’t super improved up there,” Boxrud said. “But it has across the area, so now we can borrow these people to bring them up there if we need to.”