DILLON, SC (WBTW) – The Dillon County Council voted unanimously at a meeting on Wednesday to buy three mosquito spraying machines.
Each machine will cost $8,000. Chairman Stevie Grice says they will start spraying the 259,400 acres of Dillon County as soon as they get those machines. He says the equipment will run about five hours a night starting around 6 or 7 p.m. He tells News13 they will conduct mosquito spraying for as many days as needed to get rid of all of the mosquitos. The county also plans to request help from FEMA in paying for the machines. If that request goes through, FEMA could reimburse the county 75%.
“Hopefully we can get some help because we flooded really bad around here. And as soon as them floodwaters went down, the mosquitos come out. And they have come out in full force. Really big and really aggressive. And it is a concern to all of us up here to all of the citizens, especially in the country. They’re really bad,” said Chairman Grice.
Council members debated between aerial spraying and machine spraying, but chose machine spraying because it was less expensive. According to Chairman Grice, aerial spraying would cost about $500,000.
News13 also spoke with people in Riverdale, which is said to have the worst mosquito issue. Residents say those mosquitos are big, aggressive, and it seems they’re multiplying every day. Lauren Rowell says, ever since Hurricane Florence hit, swarms of mosquitos have been on the attack.
“Three, four, five follow you to your car. You can’t even get inside the house. You get inside the house, they’re following behind you,” she said. “You’re sitting down in the house and you’re just hitting yourself and hitting yourself because mosquitoes are just so terrible.”
Rowell says she hopes mosquito spraying will be performed quickly so that mosquitos don’t keep breeding.
