If you’ve never lived through a
swarming cicada invasion, you have
no idea what it’s like to walk along
a sidewalk, crunching bodies and
exoskeletons beneath your every step
because there’s nowhere else to step,
in a state of trembling yips as every few
seconds, three or nine or 27 of the little
finger-sized, bug-eyed freaks buzz up
screaming toward your head beating
their chests and wings about your ears.
Many trillions of cicadas, like those in this net, emerged this summer from their hiding place below ground. They molted, mated, and by publishing time for this article, many will have died, leaving behind their offspring to bury themselves into the soil and lay dormant until their brood’s next cycle, 13 or 17 years from now, depending on the species.
Service techs in Illinois do know
about it, though. All about it. For this
summer, the state saw the biggest
invasion of cicadas since 1803. Cicadas,
which fully grown look sort of like flying
Cheetos due to their shape and orange
color, spend most of their time as eggs
buried underground. Then one summer,
they wake up, hatch, dig themselves out,
let out a hair-raising screech and fly off
into the nearest young girls’ hair causing
trauma that will require decades of
therapy to assuage.
Some cicada breeds only emerge
every 13 years. And some cicada breeds
only emerge every 17 years. Do the math,
and you’ll see that eventually, both
groups will come out at once, for a super
double-invasion: a perfect storm of
flying, shrieking, Cheeto-banshees.
Pool service professionals were on
the front lines of the battle, defending
the nation’s swimming vessels against
these martianesque invaders. Service
pros like Josh Kopischke at All Seasons
Pools & Spas saw action from day
one as the giant bugs swarmed over
suburban Chicago.
In the worst-hit pools in the main invasion zone, the insects covered the water and started filling up skimmers and clogging pool circulation immediately. “I’m not joking,” Kopischke reported during a lull in the action, “I told one of my customers to get one of those solar-powered auto skimmers, and they clean that thing out twice a day. It’s filled with cicadas. You literally could make burger patties out of them. (Which they do in Africa, by the way. They actually make patties out of crushed cicadas and eat them.)
“Some pools have those floatingweir
skimmers, and the float isn’t able
to go down because of how many dead
cicadas are packed in there. Those are
commercial properties. They have a
gravity-fed pit, so the pump never runs
dry on those commercial pools, but for
some other [residential] people, they’ve
burned out pumps.”
Worse than the physical imposition
of cicada bodies into the pool system is
the psychological effect — the blaring,
grinding sound of millions of fullthroated
cicadas screaming for their
mates (that’s why they’re screaming) can
reach 90 decibels, which is as loud as a lawnmower.
“That part is weird,” says Kopischke.
“Some places aren’t too bad, but when I
go to South Holland, they’re everywhere
— so loud, and you feel like you’re
watching a movie in surround sound or
something, and then sometimes, when
you’re walking through some of the
trees, they all swarm and kind of come
at you. But it’s like they don’t even know
what they’re doing, they’re just swarming
you.
“And it’s been a problem for some of
the homeowners because there are so
many cicada bodies around, and their
dogs eat the bodies to the point where
they get sick. The dog doesn’t know any
difference: It’s like, ‘Hey, look at that —
food!'”
THE BRIGHT SIDE OF A
PLAGUE
The invasion has tested the nerves of
service pros in all industries, as they
grapple with the massive infestation.
But always one to see the bright side of
things, Kopischke admits it hasn’t all
been bad. He got some free yard work
out of the deal:
“When they hatch and they crawl
up out of the ground, they create little
holes. And it’s just like they’re aerating
your lawn. I was about to seed my lawn
when they came out, so the timing was
perfect.
“I’d bought some special grass seed
to put out there, and I was planning on
aerating, and then the next week, I went
outside and it’s like, ‘Look at this! There’s
all these holes. Now I don’t have to do
anything. Thank you, cicadas!'”
