As Formosan termites chew their way through homes in Louisiana and elsewhere in the South, builders and legislators are left searching for solutions.
Posted on 09/13/2005 3:12:33 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
(Nov 2003) "Science"
The bug that ate New Orleans
***............The termites do such a fast and thorough job of gutting wood support beams that houses sometimes collapse without warning.
Over the past 15 years they have easily destroyed more of the Big Easy than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined.
The dinner bill for this movable feast of wood is $3 billion and growing. And authorities warn that the insects are expanding their range in the United States, moving as far north as North Carolina to date.
In the French Quarter, the cultural heart of a city as much covered by charm as its stately live oaks are by Spanish moss, the voracious termites have eaten through the roof of a police station just off Bourbon Street. They've also shredded the joists under the second floor of The Cabildo, the 1795 building where the Louisiana Purchase was signed.
Matt Messenger of the New Orleans Mosquito and Termite Control Board said the quarter is a magnet for the termites.
"The French Quarter is a termite nightmare," Messenger said, "with its dense wooden construction, common-walled buildings, leaky roofs and moisture retaining brickwork and no open ground.''
In the home of James Cahn, built around a lush courtyard on Barracks Street in 1850, the battle is constant, as it is in almost all the old French Quarter buildings. He's had to replace the roof three times since he bought his home in 1979. For eight years, one interior wall has been ripped out to expose the wooden joists for treatments to get the termites out. In the courtyard, a big magnolia tree with a trunk diameter of more than six feet has been infested and treated with pesticides four times.
"We found six termite nests when we renovated the house and places where they've eaten all of the two-by-fours,'' Cahn said. "In the living room there are holes above the window where they've eaten through the plaster.
"We've seen places where they've eaten through tin to get at the wood.''............***
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03307/236173.stm
Just who is the copy editor here?
Isn't this also a description of what comprise's a liberal in the US?
>>>"We've seen places where they've eaten through tin to get at the wood.''............***"<<<
Rocket Scientist Alert!!!
......And along with traces of pesticides below federal guidelines, the EPA analysis also unearthed more than a dozen other chemicals in the putrid water for which the agency does not have standards
Perhaps it's all the termite killing toxins.
New Orleans should be bulldozed and not rebuilt with Federal taxes. Former Mayor Moriel (spelling?) once said it's a city that should not have been built, and he was right about that.
How about building with concrete block?
I think your opinion might be a growning one.
We need shipping on the Mississippi River but a port is different than a city.
***growing***
Thanks for the info.
The Formosan Termite is a big problem is Hawaii. The University of Hawaii did some research and found that if you build your house with the foundation on a bed of gravel of a certain size, the termites can't tunnel up into your home. The gravel keeps collapsing as the termites try to tunnel upwards to the wooden foundation.
Now that's interesting.
Is it true?
It seems too simple.
Just who is the copy editor here?
A Publik Screwall Graduate? The termites never got internet a long time ago but got their site now?
They are hungry in NOLA(plus the sub-tropical climate) as Orkin got paid as regularly as the utility bill when we lived there.
It is a dry heat in Arizona.
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