It was a scene straight from a nightmare.
A town in Pennsylvania was invaded by swarming mayflies on Saturday
night, causing three separate motorcycle accidents and closing a bridge
for several hours, fire chief Douglas Kemmerly told ABC News today.
The Wrightsville Fire Department responded to a motorcycle crash along
the Veterans Memorial Bridge between the towns of Columbia and
Wrightsville. Firefighters and police were bombarded by nickel-sized
mayflies that turned the sky into a “blizzard,” Kemmerly said.
“The visibility was really low and you couldn’t even open your eyes.
They were flying into your mouth and eyes, no wonder why three
motorcycles got into accidents,” he said.
“The [fire]trucks were just covered the whole time they were on the bridge,” Kemmerly added.
The dead insects were up to a few inches thick in places on the bridge.
Kemmerly did not know the condition of the people involved in the three
motorcycle crashes. However, officials decided to close the bridge for
safety reasons around 10:30 p.m. and it was reopened several hours
later.
The mayflies come up out of the water to mate and once they mate, they
die, a source in the communications office at the Columbia Borough told
ABC News today.
"They’re attracted to the new lights on the bridge. The town replaced
the bulbs about two years ago and that’s why they swarmed the area,” the
source said.
Kemmerly said he wasn’t sure if the lights were the true cause of the
intense swarming, but the bridge has had mayfly problems in the past.
"We’ve always had mayflies on the bridge, but never to this extent,” he
said. “They swarmed last year but it wasn’t bad enough to cause three
wrecks."
The Columbia Borough Police Department did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.