TAMPA, Fla. — Mosquito control offices around Tampa Bay are preparing for an onslaught.
Standing water left behind by Debby has created a breeding ground for what's expected to be swarms of mosquitoes. Most species are just a biting nuisance, but some could potentially carry disease.
Hillsborough Mosquito Management’s Eric Long explains the concern: “You could have eggs laying in the soil for years that during a drought that could just sit there for years, and once water hits them, you have millions hatching off all at one time,” Long said.
Hillsborough Mosquito Control expects to be inundated with calls over the next few days. They’re already deploying trucks and helicopters to spread larvicide along the coastline, working inland to pockets of standing water.
While they concentrate on the big stuff, they’re also asking the public to do its part by getting rid of any standing water.
“Either you or your neighbor might have some kind of standing water that they're not getting rid of immediately afterwards,” Long said. “And mosquitoes only need about an inch and a half of water to breed, so something as small as a bottle cap being left outside breed of mosquitoes as well, too.”
Hillsborough County workers hope a well-timed free mosquito fish giveaway, taking place Saturday at the FishHawk Sports Complex in Lithia between 8 a.m. and noon, will also help.
“Those fish that are putting into those natural bodies right now, like I said, they're gonna multiply so they're going to do a very good job of controlling that mosquito population inside there as well,” Long said.
To the south, in parts of Manatee and Sarasota counties, where the water has been standing for days, they're expecting the same insect invasion.
Flooding is still so widespread, that mosquito control workers are asking for patience.
“Please remember that we are treating the entire area,” Sarasota County Mosquito Management services manager Wade Brennan said. “So, sometimes, depending upon the extent of the damage or the flooding, we may have to notify people that were actually focusing our efforts on neighborhood problems that we might not be able to go to every single person's backyard.”
One of the reasons that the mosquito fish program is considered so effective is that just 10 fish can breed to become more than a thousand over the course of just a week or two – and each of them devour more than a hundred mosquito larvae a day.
If you're not able to make it out to the free giveaway on Saturday, county workers say you can make an appointment to come pick up your own fish at mosquito control headquarters in Tampa.
Mosquito control workers say so far, thankfully, we haven’t seen any outbreaks of mosquito-borne illnesses like equine encephalitis or dengue fever, but they are keeping an eye out for any insects carrying those diseases and are prepared to concentrate their efforts in affected neighborhoods if needed.