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!'"
