Allergy warnings as Hurricane Helene disturbs wasps’ nests

Swarms of yellowjacket wasps, bees and other insects whose underground nests in western North Carolina were disturbed by Hurricane Helene’s flooding have prompted authorities to augment stocks of Benadryl and epinephrine injections for people allergic to stings.

The emergency measure, health officials say, is necessary because hundreds of thousands of aggressive insects, especially yellowjackets the size of honeybees, were forced above ground by the storm and have no nests to which to return.

Pharmacists and doctors’ offices have reported an increase in people seeking treatment for stings, which in some victims can lead to vomiting, dizziness, and fever – or, in the most serious case, anaphylaxis.

The North Carolina health and human services department said it was buying more of the medicines to keep treatment centers stocked, and it plans to temporarily allow people to purchase EpiPens without a prescription.

The department advised residents to wear long-sleeved clothing when they are outside, particularly if they are cleaning up from the storm and moving piles of debris where insects might have gathered in larger numbers.

Matt Bertone, director of North Carolina state university’s department of entomology, told the Asheville Citizen-Times that the insects were similar to human residents who had lost their homes and were not happy about it.

“If their nest is destroyed, they have nowhere to go back to. If they’ve escaped, if they haven’t drowned, they’re gonna be out and about, not knowing what to do,” he said.

The university’s public outreach website Extension warns that yellowjackets can be a particular menace, with colonies that can each contain up to 3,000 worker wasps. “Like honey bees, when their hives are disturbed, yellowjackets swarm out aggressively to sting whatever caused the disruption,” it states.

Bertone told the Citizen Times that proliferating swarms of mosquitoes could also become a problem because of standing water left by receding flood water.

“The water is where they breed, and anytime you have lots of standing water you’re gonna have breeding sites for mosquitoes, so there certainly are more puddles and water just in containers and places that have been flooded,” he told the newspaper.

A silver lining, he said, was that there were unlikely to be so many yellowjackets around next spring because large numbers of queens, which hibernate in their nests through the fall and winter, were likely to have drowned during and after the storm.