Cicadas Are Harmless? Driver Begs To Differ

It was Sunday afternoon on Bellevue Drive in Bethesda. It was hot. Cicadas flitted about.

Rosalinda Yangas went for a drive in her red Toyota. Yangas doesn't usually hit the AC right away. She rolls down the window and lets the hot air out.

That's what she did on Sunday.

"A cicada flew in my window and hit my face," she said yesterday, recalling the ordeal. "My face," she added, for emphasis. "Instinctively, I took my hands off the wheel and swatted the cicada."

It all happened so fast. The Toyota hit the curb in the 9700 block, which is where Yangas lives, and then a hydrant. "Before I knew it, there was a splash of water," she said. A water main broke, flooding the street. Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service spokesman Pete Piringer said some homes along Bellevue were without water for a few hours Sunday afternoon.

Yangas was wearing her seat belt. She was fine, if a bit rattled. Yangas had somewhere to be, so her neighbors told her to go. They would take care of things. "Very good neighbors we have here," Yangas said.

She was driving very slowly, she said, but close to the curb to make room for another vehicle in the road. "The officer used his discretion and did not write her a ticket," said Derek Baliles, a Montgomery County police spokesman.

The fate of the cicada is unknown. "If nothing else, it probably drowned," Piringer said.

Yangas has some advice for those who must drive in the midst of a cicada emergence: "Keep your windows closed."