POST WAR
town on the east coast of Florida: Fort Lauderdale,
going along the Indian River in the fall. The
sulphur smell was predominant.”
Dacy was out of college when the
turnpike opened in 1957, and his work in
the citrus industry required him to drive all
over the state.
“The turnpike was really a godsend,
because you could go 50 miles an hour or
so,” he said. “It made life a lot easier.”
MOSQUITO WARS
Modern measures to fight mosquitoes
began in Vero Beach during the closing
months of World War II. The Navy, which
operated a naval air station at the city
airport, announced plans to use DDT
against the insects in the air and on the
ground. The base newspaper, The Buccaneer,
with a headline, “Vero Mosquitoes Under
Attack.” The story shared front-page space
with a photo of a flag at half-staff in honor
of President Franklin Roosevelt, who had
died a week earlier.
The Navy did aerial spraying of DDT on
40 square miles of salt marsh around Vero,
and painted a mixture of the pesticide and
diesel oil on window screens in barracks,
the dispensary, mess hall and other buildings
56
West Palm, Stuart. I can remember
reported the news on April 19, 1945,
at the air station. Sacks of sawdust
saturated with DDT were dropped into
pools of stagnant water where mosquitoes
were likely to breed.
The Buccaneer reported DDT was working
well, but told readers not to become
complacent.
“It’s a safe guess to say that we’ll still be
cursing the bites this summer,” the newspaper
said. “DDT is here as a control, not
an eradicator.”
DDT became available for civilian use
after the war. When John Beidler of Vero
Beach became director of the Indian River
Mosquito Control District in 1955, there
was no shortage of the noxious little pests.
Mosquitoes were often so thick that 50
to 100 of them would land on a human
tester in a minute or less, he said in a radio
interview.
“When I first came, they were using
some mist blowers or dusting machines,”
he said. “They were quite cumbersome, so
we began using what are called thermal
fog machines. The insecticide was dissolved
in diesel oil and heated up to 1,000
degrees. Then you would spray it into the
air as a vapor, which made a huge cloud
of fog. If you had the right insecticide it
would kill some mosquitoes, and also,
unfortunately, attract children.” >>
FLORIDA MEMORY PROJECT
Modern measures to fight mosquitoes arrived in
Vero during World War II and continued for civilian
use after the war.
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