Video: Swarming Mayflies captured on camera

Jeff Renard and his wife, Susan, were traveling home to Springfield Wednesday a little after 9 p.m. All seemed normal until...

http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=12938204                                # # # # Swarming Mayflies captured on camera  •  Springfield, Vermont - August 6, 2010  •  Jeff Renard and his wife, Susan, were traveling home to Springfield Wednesday a little after 9 p.m. All seemed normal until...  •  "We were coming across the Charlestown bridge and noticed what looked like a snowstorm just at the mouth of the bridge," Jeff Renard said.  •  So, he pulled into the nearby Hoyt's Landing and did what any 21st century traveler would do; he took out his iPhone and started recording. And what he captured is something you do not see every day-- millions of Mayflies completely covering the ground swarming around the vehicle.  •  "As soon as I turned the high beams on it went completely white," he said. "You couldn't see more than just a few feet in front of the car. You could hear them pelting the window."  •  "I was kind of frightened," Susan Renard said. "I was afraid they were going to start coming in the vents of the car and we were going to be consumed or something."  •  Not only is there video to document the event, there is also the evidence left behind. Thousands, if not millions, of dead flies still remain at the boat launch-- proof of an event that witnesses say was something almost out of this world.  •  "This was just something of biblical proportions, I mean that is what it seemed like," Jeff Renard said. "You hear about the swarms of locust and now we can add swarms of Mayflies to that list."  •  But, as Jeff Renard later found out, the buggy blizzard is actually something that happens every year. The Connecticut River is the breeding ground. He explained, "My understanding is that they live down at the bottom of the river in the mud for a couple of years. They come up-- this is a 24 to 72 hour event-- they come up, they mate, they lay their eggs and then it is over for them."  •  An event that was recorded for all to see. One that this couple is not going to forget anytime soon.  •  Susan Renard said, "In a way, it was almost mesmerizing, hypnotic in a way because there was just so many of them. In the same time, it was scary."  •  The couple managed to make their escape by slowly driving away from the swarm.  •  Adam Sullivan - WCAX News  •