It's four o'clock

in the morning. Do you know where your Christmas cards are?

Chances are the cards in your

mailbox today were parceled out at the U.S. Postal Service sorting facility

on Ga. Highway 54 in between Fayetteville and Peachtree City. It serves

Fairburn, Palmetto, Union City and Senoia in addition to locales in Fayette

County.

The facility contains three

mammoth machines that sort envelopes at a blazing speed based on the bar

code printed on the envelope under the address. After each envelope is

scanned by the computer, it is carried quickly along a conveyor belt system

that shoots it to the appropriate level of bins.

Letters are sent to specific

bins so they may first be sorted by carrier. Then each carrier's

letters are sorted a second time so they may be placed in the order in

which they will be delivered.

Envelopes which contain small

items cannot be processed by the machines and must therefore be processed

After workers arrive at 1:30

a.m., the goal is to get all the mail sorted by 8 a.m., said Sonya Calaway,

a supervisor at the sorting facility. Sometimes, one of the three sorting

machines breaks down and a mechanic works on getting it back up and running.

A breakdown can significantly

slow down the process, however, Calaway said.

On Monday, Dec. 15, the postal

service's busiest day, the sorting facility machines processed 290,000

pieces of mail for delivery.