MANDEVILLE, Louisiana — Drivers this week have been reporting low visibility over the Causeway Bridge and it's not due to rain or fog. They are blaming bugs. The bugs called 'midges' have been spotted in swarms several nights this week usually around dusk.
Shelley Dupuis pulled over as soon as she crossed the Causeway heading northbound Wednesday night to try and figure out what had splattered all over her car.
"I thought at first it was rain. I had to use the wipers and wiper fluid probably every mile and a half on the Causeway," Dupuis said. "Thousands and thousands of them just covered my car and smelled like something I never smelled, smelled like fish not bugs."
She said there were so many bugs it affected visibility.
"You could not see. There were cars with their hazard lights on, there were people pulled in the crossover," she said.
"You couldn’t see anything, you could not see anything," Carlos Ebanks said.
He used so much wiper fluid he ran out.
"It was murder on my windshield and on my grill," Ebanks said.
He cleaned the bugs off at Pelican Pointe Carwash in Mandeville.
"Every single year it happens, every year," Ebanks said.
As Entomologist Joe Martin explains, these bugs that can be mistaken for mosquitoes are called aquatic midges. These don't bite and aren't harmful to you, but they sure can be a nuisance when they start swarming during warm weather.
They usually like to breed in fresh dirty water. Our lake is salty but somewhere they found some water where they bred, floated and emerged and when they emerge, they emerge big time," Martin said.
There may be several swarms this time of year, typically at night. They will keep carwashes busy for a few weeks.
"The headlights are almost covered completely and they can't even scrub them off, we're having to pressure wash them off," said Zachary Wilson, Assistant Manager of Pelican Pointe Carwash in Mandeville.
Dupuis learned to check under your grill too.
"This was totally covered, in the grill where the radiator is is where my husband uncovered and cleaned out more," she said.
Wash your car as soon as possible so the bugs don't bake into your paint.
Causeway officials warn if you are on the road and can't see due to the midges, pull over on a crossover and call Causeway police who will help you clean off your windshield.