So How's That Cicada Invasion Working Out for You?

I don't often get the chance to say "I told you so," so I'm going to milk this one for all it's worth.

In April, I told you to pay no attention to the journalists behind the curtain who, in all their collective wisdom, were warning you that a storm was coming—and it was going to be a whopper!

This storm would come in the form of a giant, swarming, tree-chomping, ear-splitting, high-gross-factor generation of 17-year cicadas known as Brood II of the cicada species Magicicada.

This infestation of Biblical proportions would cause untold devastation and reduce our quality of life to zero over a good portion of late spring and early summer.

Reading between the lines, one got the impression one needed an underground bunker, food and water stores for three months and a very generous vacation plan to ride out this imminent storm.

Journalists interviewed experts who said billions of these bugs would begin popping out of the ground as soon as the soil about eight inches below the surface reached 64 degrees. Depending on the region this would happen from mid-April through June.

So, here it is, approaching late June, and I for one haven't heard a single peep out of a cicada.

I have seen neither hide nor hair nor exoskeleton of a Brood II Magicicada–and trust me, I've been looking.

I've walked through several area parks, including North Point State Park and Chesterwood, Merritt Point and Cox's Point county parks (heavily treed areas are a sure bet for harboring the creatures) and have come up empty-handed.

In fact, there have been no local (Baltimore metropolitan area) sightings and the region's media, eager to jump on the cicada bandwagon in March and April, have fallen mysteriously—and uncharacteristically—silent on the subject.

The fact is experts never expected central Maryland to be affected by Brood II. The bugs were expected to be a presence in Calvert County and southern portions of Anne Arundel County, and no where else in the state.

But media types, who unfortunately enjoy whipping up the masses to drive ratings, latched on to the story like a maligned pit bull and refused to relax their jaws for so much as a second.

Now, don't get me wrong. Brood II obviously does exist and did erupt—but exactly where it was expected to erupt and nowhere else.

Scientists have been studying and tracking these guys long enough to know exactly where (and where not) to expect cicada "storms."

They even track new development and therefore know where cicada "nesting" areas have been disrupted.

To tell the entire nation (a la the Today show) to bunker down and prepare for the worst cicada invasion in history is the equivalent of telling the entire country to buy milk, bread and toilet paper for the coming blizzard, knowing full well that only portions of Maine would be affected.

But there could be some good to come out of this experience.

If you heeded the (between the lines) advice of some of my fellow journalists and went ahead and invested in that underground bunker, you might want to keep it well-stocked.

Brood X and 2021 will be here before you know it!