Grand Forks, like a lot of towns large and small, in North Dakota and throughout the Midwest periodically spray for mosquitoes during the peak summer months. Spraying occurs in the evening, during prime mosquito activity time, and is done with low flying aircraft (freaked me out the first time it happened) and/or trucks that drive slowly through the streets.
They usually give a day or two warning when they're going to spray, typically publishing a small article in the Grand Forks Herald. The most recent article caught my eye though, since it contained some information that was new to me.
It started with - "Mosquito control trucks travel with a flashing yellow light at about 10 miles an hour." OK, cool. Good to know that there will be slow trucks around town and we should avoid them like any other service vehicle, or snow plow.
The next important item was a warning - "Residents should not run, walk or bike directly through the aerosol cloud behind the sprayer." What!?!?! Does this really happen? Seriously? And often enough that people need to be warned not ride their bike or jog behind the toxic death cloud that's spewing out of the truck. Is this a game for local kids? Really?
And the final nugget of information - "Residents may want to stay inside for about a half hour until the cloud dissipates." This seems a bit more reasonable, yet still scary. The thing about a toxic death cloud is that it rarely does as it's told. Just like Baby from Dirty Dancing - you don't put Toxic Death Cloud in a corner.
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