NAKOO

FIRE ANT HURRICANE

By Percy Cutrer

"The news report says that a Hurricane is headed for Louisiana -- it looks like your area is going to be hit," said Dave. He was calling from Chicago.

"Yes, the big show is on its way", I replied. I live about one hundred fifty miles north of the Gulf of Mexico. There would be high winds, lots of rain, and local flooding.

"I have always wanted to see, to be in, to experience a Hurricane", continued Dave. "Nature's biggest show -- it must be an awesome experience".

"Yes it is, Dave -- an experience never to be forgotten. If you truly want to see this one, get the next plane to New Orleans. Do not hesitate -- the New Orleans airport will be closing soon."

A few minutes later, Dave called again, and said that he was on his way to Chicago's O'Hare Airport.

I recalled how, a couple of years earlier, Dave had been involved in another never-to-be- forgotten experience in Louisiana. Fire Ants! We were in my garden looking at the tomato plants, when Dave had suddenly begun dancing wildly and beating his pants legs. "Oh, Oh, Ouch, Ouch," he was screaming as he danced.

"Move over here," I yelled. "You are stomping around in a Fire Ant Nest."

He ran to the edge of the garden and pulled off his pants, beating and scratching his legs. "I feel like I'm on fire", he said. "They are still stinging me!".

Dave was discovering curious fact of a fireant "sting". When all the ants are brushed off, it feels just as if they continue to sting. The next day, at each site of a sting, a small raised area will appear, looking like a pimple. In the center will be a yellow area, ringed by red. Most often the attack seems to happen suddenly, as if dozens of the creatures had decided to sting simultaneously. "A bunch of them quietly run up your pants legs", once said my cousin Charles. "Then one of them yells at the others -- 'Sting now', and they all sting at once."

Dave was now on his way to another unique experience, and I hoped that this one would not be so painful. I did not know that once again, the Fire Ants would play a part.

When Dave arrived in New Orleans, he phoned me, saying that he would be on the next bus going north, and asked me to meet him in town. He told me that indeed his plane had been the last to land at the New Orleans Airport before it had shut down because of high winds.

Already the rains had begun, flooding the areas upstream from the little creek than runs through my pastures. I knew that the pastures would flood -- the cattle had already been moved to higher ground. The creek was normally a small stream, but it would later swell to a wide, brown river. I had watched the approach of the storm, from the near pasture. To the north and northwest, the sky was clear and blue, but the cloud bank was appearing to the south. It moved toward me, slowly, ominously -- a deliberate and majestic march across the sky. This storm would be a big one, and Dave would have his experience.

I met him in town. Already there was minor flooding in the streets. The winds were increasing, buffeting the van as we drove the six miles back to the creek swamp where I lived. Treetops were beginning to wave back and forth, occasional twigs flew through the air. We arrived just as the big blow hit.

The winds were powerful, and blowing constantly. The great trees -- beech, poplar, sweetgum and sycamore -- were swaying violently. The tree-top canopy was lurching in waves, looking as if it were a great green ocean whipped into a frothy turbulence. The roar of the storm was punctuated by the sharp, thrashing sounds of tormented trees. We watched as two of the tall trees began the "tilt" -- that crucial time when the roots begin to give way and the tree would fall. There was no longer back and forth movement of the branches -- they streamed out in one direction. The high speed winds were a sharp contrast to the slowly increasing lean of the two trees. They did not crash to the ground -- they just went down in slow motion until they were on the ground. All of the roots were now above ground in that circular disk about eight feet in diameter, which we call a Hurricane Root.

"My God," said Dave. "I could never even have imagined anything like this."

The rains came in horizontal staccato sheets. The swamp was in turmoil and occasionally there was a boom, a crash, as one of the big trees went down more violently than the two we had seen in their slow tilt.

Then, the winds subsided, the rains stopped. A calm appeared as the storm's eye came over us. Above was a peaceful blue sky.

"Let's go, Dave", I said. Let's go to the open pasture. Let's see what the creek is doing." What lay ahead was an unusual experience new to myself as well as to Dave.

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The creek was "doing its thing", for sure! Already it was a brown river, six hundred feet wide, flooding the near pasture. Because it was so broad, the water was not overly swift. Debris was floating by -- twigs, small branches that had torn loose during the high winds -- a small, wet field mouse sitting atop a drifting log. Then we noticed some curious looking flotsam -- brown, circular mats which from the distance, looked exactly like door mats of straw. They looked so very odd -- I had never seen things like this before -- so I waded into the water.

When I was near the center of the stream, where the mats were floating by, the water was waist high. Dave was right behind me. His hurricane adventure was in full swing.

As one of the mats approached us, I was impressed by its perfect symmetry, and by its uniform appearance. There was nothing ragged about the shape -- it was a brown circular mass floating on the water. When it was within a foot of me, I realized with astonishment what the mat was. It was a colony of Fire Ants. As they were being flooded out of their nest upstream, they had knitted themselves tightly together, forming this floating mass. There were dozens of these mats, drifting past us. A Nation of Fire Ants, on the move -- venturing toward new territory, promising their fire dance to lifeforms downstream.

"Dave, it's Fire Ants", I yelled. "Do not let one of these mats touch you."

There must have been tens of thousands of the tiny creatures in each mat, waiting to touch any surface where they could loosen their grip on each other, and swarm "ashore". That many stings could put you in the hospital.

I simply had to investigate further. Never before, and perhaps never again, would such an opportunity be presented. Another mat approached, and cautiously, I moved closer. The surface of the mat was a roiling mass of ants, as if in miniature reflection of the tree canopy turbulence before the storm's eye had appeared. I dared not touch the top of the mat and thus induce a possible swarming of the ants. Would they sting? Or would they, like honey bees, be docile during this great event in their lives?

But why not touch the bottom of the mat? To see this living raft and understand what had happened, was not enough -- I wanted more -- I must feel. The bottom of the mat was at least half an inch under water. The incessant movement within the mat was caused by the constant shifting position of the ants, from underwater to the mat's top surface and back again.

The sky was no longer blue and clear. The storm's eye was marching on, the winds were returning. This once in a lifetime experience had to be engaged at once, and I cautiously placed my hand under one of the mats, at the ready to submerge my entire body if I thus provoked an attack.

There was no attack. The feeling was like nothing I had ever known. I held a city in the palm of my hand. Tens of thousands of tiny, moving animals -- the mat was warm from their movements -- the mat was oily, electric -- there was something benign and wonderful about the feeling, as my hand caressed the undersurface of that living mass. My mind was stilled in awe. I watched as it floated away downstream. Other mats floated by.

Dave had retreated, and was watching from a distance. He had come to Louisiana for a hurricane adventure and now in the midst of the storm and waist deep in a river, he was being threatened again by the dreaded Fire Ants.

Dave returned to Chicago, and years later, in his correspondence, he would refer to the Fire Ant Hurricane. He had wanted to experience a Hurricane, he had ventured, and he had won.

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