I’m in FL …. for now*. We’ve got hurricane Milton coming for us and hurricane Helene was just a couple weeks ago. This is a perfect time to talk about hurricanes and the impact that has on pest control. If you aren’t on the east coast and have never experienced the little bit of rain and wind we get, hold on. This applies to most severe weather events like floods, fires, droughts, tornados, earthquakes, alien invasions, and more.
I’m going to break this down into pre-weather event and post-event.
Obviously there will be warning before most events, but not all (tornados, earthquakes, etc.). When there is warning, there are some things that can be done. Sealing up structures is one of the most effective things that can be done. That will help with heat and cooling, preventing water entering, and keeping pests out. Granted, that’s easier said than done sometimes, especially if there are big openings that take time and investment to seal. As pest control professionals, documentation should be done constantly on this but right before an event, it should be stressed to the customer to do this as quickly as possible.
Also pre-event, some treatment may be applied if immediately necessary. This is not a “let’s throw down some granular” or “might as well do a perimeter treatment” just because. It’s going to get washed away, relocated, or otherwise negated by the weather event so it’s not going to do any good post-event. Treatments can and should be made where there is an obvious pest problem. In the south, that might be visible fire ant mounds. At this time of year, it can be wasp nests, particularly ground nests. Maybe it’s a group of scorpions close to a structure or woods roaches living in the mulch. The treatment should be targeted to where that pest is now. This should not be any kind of preventative treatment.
After the rains have gone, don't celebrate with champagne yet. Things are likely to be a mess. There’s going to be tons of sanitation issues and pests will have been moved around and they don’t have a home anymore. People may not have a home or their structure could be significantly damaged as well. People will be coming into contact with more pests because they will be outside, trying to clean up the messes and there will be a lot more gaps now open for pests to get into structures. They like making love in the moonlight and no weather event is going to stop that completely.
Pests will be looking to escape the bad conditions they have found themselves in. Those floating fire ant “rafts” will be waiting to bump into anything that resembles dry land. During droughts, many pests are looking for the opposite – they need water. Since we water our lawns and landscaping plants, that area now becomes an attractive habitat for everything in the area. Tornados will literally pick up pests and relocate them to other areas.
So post-event is all about sanitation and putting up barriers to prevent pests from making it to a structure. This is where those perimeter treatments are going to come in. There is a caveat to this (of course). Normally we want to focus on the doors and windows and other “normal” entry points where pests are most likely to get in. Now, we have a structure that likely has LOTS more entry points that were created by the hurricane. More important than that, people are going to be moving around a lot more as they do clean up. We don’t want people moving through a treated area, we want that area for the pests. There’s also way more conducive conditions than before and probably in different places.
And just wait for all those people who evacuated to bring back bed bugs with them!
If you're not into yoga, well, get flexible, things are going to be turbulent for a while. This is where professionals are necessary. They have more than half a brain. Their knowledge and experience are crucial to getting to pest problems fast, finding conducive conditions, and putting preventative controls in place. If you want an independent assessment of your programs, we do that. Write to us and escape (aka contact us).
*as of posting this, I evacuated back to ATL
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