Hillsborough County ramps up mosquito control efforts

TAMPA, Fla. - Hurricane Idalia brought rain, storm surge and major flooding to the Tampa Bay area, so crews with Hillsborough County Mosquito Management Services have been busy.

"Immediately after the storm on Thursday, we started our helicopter missions to go out and treat the coastal areas. There's a lot of salt marsh areas along the coast that breed thousands and thousands of mosquitoes," David Fiess, Hillsborough County Mosquito Management Services manager, said.

This week, crews are checking standing water in our local communities.

"After any large rain event, we're out there attacking that standing water out there to try to prevent those mosquitoes from flying around," Fiess said. "It's a lot easier to kill these mosquitoes when they're in the water than when they're flying around in the air."

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Fiess told FOX 13 that mosquitoes only need about a fourth inch of water to go through their life cycle.

As a result, the key to controlling them is to find them while they're still growing in the water and apply larvicide and other chemical treatments quickly.

"Once that egg hatches into the larva, we only have a few days to get the larvicide product into the water, so they're feeding on it, and then they'll die," Fiess said.

On Tuesday, Jesse Morgandale was out testing and spreading larvicide on standing water at Mike E. Sansone Community Park in Plant City.

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"I would treat this just from what I found. It's not a lot of breeding, but it's still there and could still affect kids playing at a park or over here. They got a tennis club," Morgandale said.

There are about 40 different types of mosquitoes in Hillsborough County, Fiess said. Six or seven of them have the capability of spreading disease.

The county set some of its first mosquito traps Tuesday. Later this week, they’ll look at the different kinds of mosquitos in those traps and respond with the appropriate treatment.

As part of their mosquito control efforts, the county is asking residents to empty any standing water in their yards.