VIDEO: So Many Mayflies Swarm This Officer’s Car The Snow Plow’s Called In To Remove The Mountain Of Insects

If you are easily creeped out by insects then you should probably turn away now. The video (and GIFs) below show an officer on the Savanna–Sabula Bridge in Iowa, a major crossing of the Mississippi River, and his patrol car is being completely swamped by shadflies (or mayflies, whatever you want to call them).

In the video below, so many flies have swarmed his patrol car and the surrounding area that the bridge conditions are that of a ‘white out’ in Winter, where visibility is down to a few inches in front of the car, and due to the bugs being squashed by vehicles the road is as slippery as oil. This is without a doubt one of the most insane scenarios involving insects that I’ve ever seen.

The Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) put up this post on Facebook after being called in to remove the millions of mayflies with their snow plow:

Shadfly alert! This video was taken Saturday night/Sunday morning on the Savanna/Sabula bridge over the Mississippi River. Shadfiles, also known as Mayflies, are in the height of their hatching season and are covering the bridge, making it very slick. Local law enforcement called out our DOT forces to plow the insects off the bridge.
Dick Banowetz, our supervisor in the area said the flies were ankle deep on the bridge. Once his crew plowed the bridge, they applied sand for traction.
To try keep the Shadflies off the bridge during their hatching period the next few weeks, we’re going to keep the lights off at night.
Everyone crossing the bridges needs to use extra caution and motorcyclists especially need to be very careful on this bridge as the road surface is very slick from the flies.

Is it weird that all I can think about is how with that many mayflies and shadflies in the area the fishing must’ve been going off?