Cicadas are making so much noise that residents are calling the police in South Carolina
Emerging cicadas are so loud in one South Carolina county that residents are calling the sheriff’s office asking why they can hear a “noise in the air that sounds like a siren, or a whine, or a roar.”
The Newberry County Sheriff’s Office posted a message on Facebook on Tuesday letting people know that the whining sound is just the male cicadas singing to attract mates after more than a decade of being dormant.
Some people have even flagged down deputies to ask what the noise is all about, Newberry County Sheriff Lee Foster said.
Brood XIX, which comes out every 13 years, will emerge in Georgia and the Southeast, and Brood XIII, which emerges every 17 years, will appear in Illinois.
This will be the first time since 1803 that two broods emerged simultaneously. The next time this happens will be 2037. With this convergence, the bugs will arrive in numbers that have not been seen in generations.
The dual cicada brood emergence will primarily be seen in parts of Illinois and Iowa, as well as parts of Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.
U.S. Forest Park Service
Cailtin O’Kane contributed to this report.
Source: cbsnews.com