Dallas announced a new all-out offensive in the war against mosquitoes, with enhanced truck spraying for three nights starting Monday night and aerial spraying might begin Thursday at dusk.
"Traditionally, we do target spraying, and then we may hit an area and leave. What the CDC is recommended is enhanced truck-based spraying three nights in a row," said Zachary Thompson with the Dallas County Health Department. "This is a different approach than what we've done in the past. This may be something we have to consider as we go into next year, but we've got to get through this year first."
Each night, a total of seven spray trucks will roll through three neighborhoods in North Dallas and the Park Cities.
"Normally we don't do three nights in a row, we may do one night here and then another in another area," said Thompson. "It's a team approach, where we have the City of Dallas, Dallas County as well as some other municipalities who will go through these zip codes with three nights in a row spraying and from our tests, it has shown that it has reduced the number of mosquitoes in that area."
Even with the enhanced ground spraying, aerial spraying in Dallas could begin on Thursday at dusk with two specialized planes spraying parts of Dallas County from above.
"Everything is running parallel. We're doing the enhanced truck-based spraying and we're preparing for aerial spraying. We're going to move forward with our ground approach and aerial spraying is an option and its an option that cities should consider," said Thompson.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins held a meeting Monday afternoon to discuss aerial spraying with the Mayors and City Managers of all the cities north of I-30 in Dallas County.
Also attending the meeting are Dallas County health officials, city health officials, and Texas state health officials. More than two dozen people are included in the private meeting.
The cities have until Wednesday to decide if they want to be included in the aerial spraying.
NBC 5 has learned the company what would be doing the spraying is Clarke, with planes from Dynamic Aviation.
Clarke will use two Beechcraft King Air twin-engine turboprop planes, though they may ultimately use as many as five aircraft.
Dallas released the following document that shows the areas to be sprayed nightly Aug. 13-15, 2012. Click here to view the complete document, including maps of the areas.
