All rights reserved. The Times-Picayune Termites ready to swarm crawl from a crevice in an apartment in the French Quarter. A routinely wild night on Bourbon Street turns surreal as flocks of birds swoop down to snatch winged Formosan termites billowing out of French Quarter buildings and trees. Baseball games are called as thick patches of the flying bugs blow in like sand storms. Homeowners flip off porch lights and interior lamps and fumble about in the dark, hoping the swarmers won't notice their homes.
Defense systems range from fly swatters to electric bug zappers and whatever else is handy.
Many people learn, to their horror, that their houses are infested when the insects pour out of walls, roofs or floors. Others who have battled past infestations have nightmares that the swarm signals a return. Homeowners cringe at the thought that a mating pair could slip through the cracks and begin a colony that can grow to millions, eating a house from the inside out. The swarm ebbs and flows from April to July. During that time, millions of winged termites, called alates, fly from their nests in an attempt to start new colonies.