An inside look at the Fresno USPS mail processing center during the holiday rush

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- As you continue your holiday shopping...you may wonder how long you have to ship those gifts out.

There is a flurry of activity at the Fresno Mail Processing and Distribution Center.

Packages big and small pass through the distribution center, when they arrive in Fresno... before they're sent to your local post office for delivery.

"Last year, we processed over 60 million pieces here at the Fresno P&DC, we actually delivered a record, nationwide 7.2 billion pieces, and that's why we are asking our customers to get us their packages as early as possible, " said Sheila Lewis, Plant Manager at Fresno P&DC.

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Time is of the essence and many people don't even need to step foot in a post office.

You can go online and use the post office's click-and-ship services which allows you to pay for and print your postage at home.

"We are averaging about 75,000 pieces a day for parcels and about 1.2 million letters per day," added Lewis.

You may be wondering how they can handle such massive quantities of mail... the lifeline of the facility is this machine called a parcel sorter.

It's the beating heart of the facility and has a team of 50 people on standby 24/7, ready to troubleshoot any problems and keep it humming along.

"You'll see loose change break through and stop the machine, you'll see keys, different items that aren't letters, people put into envelopes, and the machines don't process them," said William Slonecker, Maintenance Manager with Fresno P&DC.

Tracking all this mail is no easy task, but with the help of technology and cameras, the process continues to evolve and become even faster.

"A lot of technology we have is just for the postal service. One of the big things we have, is we have cameras that can recognize different writing. Say your handwriting, our cameras can look at your handwriting and decipher the address it needs to go to," added Slonecker.

As you make your list and check it twice, there are some dates to keep in mind.

"They should have their packages to us between December 16th and the 20th, from the 20th on they need to send it priority," said Lewis.

For more information on how to make your visit to the post office a faster one you can head to the USPS website.

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