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IF THERE EVER WAS ANY DOUBT THAT mail and the U.S. Postal Service still play important roles in the way we communicate and do business, it dissipated along with the winds of Hurricane Katrina. Amid the largest natural disaster in American history, the need to re-establish mail links to those devastated by the storm is one of the country's major concerns.

To its credit, the USPS was one of the first of the early responders to mobilize resources and deal with the calamity. This should tell us that our country needs to place a higher priority on ensuring that the postal system remains a vibrant part of its economic and communications infrastructure.

Face it: Despite all the advances in cellular technology (which broke down after the storm), despite all the advances in electronic banking and direct deposits, an untold number of Louisianans remain totally dependent on a hard-copy delivery system.

Unfortunately, as a nation we've set aside the oft-expressed concerns that our postal system is on the brink of its own crisis from advancements in technology and a changing marketplace. And all too often we like to pretend that the postal system (and the USPS) are dispensable commodities for which substitutes are readily available.

There still are many who ardently wish that all talk of postal reform would simply go away. What Katrina has shown is that reform cannot be dealt with lightly and absolutely should not be allowed to go away. The catastrophe that New Orleans experienced just as easily could have occurred elsewhere along the Gulf Coast or the Atlantic seaboard, or it could even have taken the form of the “Big One” — the long-predicted West Coast earthquake.

In any such instance, communications and other vital services could be disrupted or destroyed. And once again, the United States — the most technology-intensive (and technology-dependent) nation in the world — would be looking to its centuries-old hard-copy message-delivery system to bind its people together.

GENE A. DEL POLITO is president of the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) in Arlington, VA.