Barbara Riley was among Tampa code enforcement officers out on Monday checking tire shops and other places where water can collect as dengue spread through Hillsborough County. Hillsborough County Mosquito Management Services was also conducting aerial spraying while neighborhood teams moved door to door.
Florida's Department of Health showed 95 cases in Hillsborough County. BillieJo Slatton, a Tampa neighborhood team leader, said her crew has 30 code officers and its work is to find standing water, educate residents, and empty containers before mosquitoes can use them.
Barbara Riley checks tire shops
Riley said, "We all have grids, and we just hit every tire shop we could." She added, "We just check the tires just to make sure that there’s no water in them." At Tampa Tires and Wheels, Khalid Abou-El-Ela said the business dumps rainwater about twice a week.
"Usually it’s like twice a week (dumping water). Something like that, it depends. Sometimes it rains a lot more. Sometimes it doesn’t rain at all. So you don’t have to do it. So it’s just play it by ear a little bit," he said. Tires, buckets, toys, frisbees, and other containers can hold water long enough to draw mosquitoes.
BillieJo Slatton and 30 officers
Slatton said, "We ride through the city, we’re going through alleys, we’re going through businesses, residential properties, anything that’s really obvious. So we see water may accumulate, we actually want to educate the citizen. The goal is to empty the water out; that’s the primary goal."
She said an enhancement crew leader saw a bucket full of water near a vacant home and emptied it. Slatton also told residents, "You want to get those things like that and keep them inside or under something so it doesn’t accumulate water and keep it empty."
Florida Department of Health numbers
The 95 reported cases give the Monday effort its urgency. County crews are trying to remove the places where mosquitoes breed, but the case count shows the response is happening after dengue is already circulating in Tampa and Hillsborough County.
How many neighborhoods or businesses have been inspected so far was not stated. For now, the work is focused on the places residents can control fastest: tires, buckets, toys, and anything left outside to collect rainwater.
