Officer, arrest that bug!
That’s the situation facing Lee Foster, the Sheriff of Newberry County in South Carolina now that the first of this year’s two mammoth broods of cicadas are starting to tell the world they have arrived.
“Some people think it might be some kind of industrial machine running. Some people think it’s a siren. Well, we just we just [tell] them [it’s] nature. It doesn’t fall on the noise ordinance,” Foster said, according to WLTX.
Some deputies have even been flagged down by residents who complain about the noise, Foster said, according to CBS.
Cicadas are so noisy in one South Carolina county that people are calling 911, sheriff says https://t.co/WFZA9thuNX
— WYFF News 4 (@wyffnews4) April 24, 2024
Trying to head off a deluge of residents bugged over the noise, the Newberry County Sheriff’s Office posted a unique message on Facebook.
“We have had several calls about a noise in the air that sounds like a siren, or a whine, or a roar. The sound is cicadas. Cicadas are a super family of insects that appear each spring. The nymphs have lived underground for 13-17 years and now this time they are hatching,” the post said.
“Although to some, the noise is annoying, they pose no danger to humans or pets. Unfortunately it is the sounds of nature,” the post said.
Should people who call the police for a non-issue be fined for wasting the officer’s time?
Not everyone was up in arms. Peter Cameron took his son Julian, 11, out into the woods for an up-close and personal visit with the cicadas, according to WTLX.
“They’re cool. They’re fun little bugs. They’re nice. They’re harmless, completely harmless. They’re cute. I mean, come on,” Julian said.
“People need to get out and explore. You’ll find out it’s not really that scary,” Cameron said.
The buzz of cicadas will soon be popping up all over as, for the first time since 1803, Brood XIX, known as the Great Southern Brood, and Brood XIII, called the Northern Illinois Brood, will arrive on the scene together, according to The New York Times. The Illinois cicadas emerge every 17 years; their southern cousins pop up every 13 years.
The result will mean trillions of bugs emerging from the ground once the ground temperature reaches about 64 degrees, according to CBS. Cicadas tunnel up from underground, mature, and then find a mate before their short lives end.
Axios has created a cicadapocalypse map to show you whether you’ll be affected by 2024’s double cicada brood emegence.https://t.co/G8wXHUwYOR pic.twitter.com/9iAaDTwkrS
— Maps Mania (@gmapsmania) April 17, 2024
Gene Kritsky, a retired professor of biology at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, said by late April or early May, northern Louisiana, southern Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, northern Georgia, and western South Carolina will begin to see the bugs as they begin their weeks-long lives, according to the Times.
Next it will be the turn of central North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and northern Arkansas, followed by southern Missouri, Southern Illinois and western Kentucky.
The last phase of the cicada eruption will take place in central and northern Missouri, Illinois, northwestern Indiana, southern Wisconsin and eastern Iowa.
