Dallas has drawn national attention for its decision to blanket itself with pesticide to combat the ongoing outbreak of West Nile. Hence, Rawlings' appearance this morning on CNN with Soledad O'Brien.
"Nice to see you sir," O'Brien said. "Thank you for talking with us. We appreciate it."
Rawlings nods. "Good to have me."
He goes on to tell O'Brien that spraying has been going well. Sure, there were a couple of unexpected rain delays, but last night crews were able to cover a quarter of a million acres.
"Tonight we go back at it we have a fifth plane and by that time we should have everybody done this time tomorrow morning," Rawlings said.
In a statement sent a few minutes ago, Rawlings said that while the initial spray had some "positive preliminary results," more needs to be done
"We need to expand our assault on the ground and enlist residents to join the fight by draining standing water to cut off mosquito breeding grounds," Rawlings said. "It only takes a little soil, compost or a few leaves, and water that stands stagnant for 1-2 weeks, to breed mosquitoes."
That and dump another coating of poison on all 362,328 acres of Dallas County. The planes fly from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. in Dallas, earlier in other cities. Officials are not yet sure whether they will spray again on Tuesday night.
There is good news in all of this. Just hours after my East Dallas home had been strafed with Duet, two living, non-mutant mosquitoes landed on my arm in quick succession, more than I had seen for quite some time. And how dangerous can a poison be if it can't even kill a damned mosquito?
