Oakland USPS distribution center to process 11 million pieces

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- Monday is the busiest day at the U.S. Postal Service -- 612 million pieces of mail will be processed on Monday alone around the country. A lot of it is going through Oakland, where things are really starting to get busy.

There is nothing normal about this day -- the busiest when it comes to processing and distributing your mail and packages for the holiday. The center in Oakland hired 75 additional workers for this day because of the volume expected there.

"In this building alone, the Oakland plant and distribution, we are expecting to process 11 million letters, flats and parcels," Evelina Ramirez from the U.S. Postal Service said.

Nationwide, the U.S. Postal Service will process 612 million pieces, that's 100 million more than on a typical day -- an increase of 15 percent from last year.

It's expected to be a good year for the postal service. Over the course of the holiday, more than 15 billion pieces will be mailed out.

This year Oakland will use a small parcel sorting system which can process 6,000 pieces an hour. Cards, letters and packages are first sorted out then they are organized by location and sent out, anywhere from Sacramento to Bakersfield.

"We still see a lot of Christmas cards. There is still that personal touch that you get out of those little personalized assigned cards and greetings so we still get a lot of those," USPS employee Evelina Ramirez said.

You can send your Christmas cards as late as December 19, but the deadline for the ground transportation parcels is Wednesday, Dec. 15.

"You can send it as late as tomorrow, December 15, and still have the expectation of getting it delivered before the 25th," Ramirez said.

This year the postal service is seeing an increase in the number of people doing their transactions online, therefore avoiding waiting in line at the post office.