The following is a perspective by postal commentator Gene Del Polito for Direct magazine. The views expressed are solely the author's.

If there ever was any doubt that mail and the U.S. Postal Service still play important roles in the way we as a nation communicate and do business, it dissipated along with the winds of Hurricane Katrina. Amidst the largest natural disaster in American history, the need to reestablish vital mail links to those who have been devastated by the storm are among the nation's paramount concerns.

To its credit, the U.S. Postal Service was one of the first of first-responders to mobilize its resources to deal with this disaster. What that should tell us is that this nation needs to place a higher priority on ensuring that its postal system remains a vibrant part of the nation's economic and communications infrastructure.

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

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 rapidly changing marketplace. And, all too often, we like to pretend that our postal system (and the U.S. Postal Service) are dispensible commodities for which substitutes are readily and perfectly available from alternatives the a changing marketplace has to offer.

In Japan, postal reform (for reasons peculiar to Japan) commands attention from the nation's media, its politicians, and its people. In the U.S., there still are many who ardently wish this all of this "reform business" would simply go away.

What Katrina has shown is that the business of reform should not be dealt with lightly and should not be allowed to "simply go away." The disaster that New Orleans has experienced just as easily could have taken a similar form elsewhere along the Gulf Coast or the Atlantic seaboard, or it could have even taken the form of The Big One long-predicted for the west coast. In any such instance, communication and other vital services could be disrupted if not destroyed, and, once again, this, the most technology-intensive and dependent nation in the world, would be looking to its centuries old hard-copy message delivery system to bind its people together.