Driver claims paint project on Walt Whitman Bridge damaged car

GLOUCESTER CITY, N.J. (WPVI) -- If you were driving over the Walt Whitman Bridge Friday morning, you might want to take a close look at your car.

If you're like one Action News viewer, there's a chance you'll find specks of white paint on your vehicle.

We spoke with a man who's black Lexus is now covered by tiny little dots of what looks like white paint.

As you can imagine he's not too happy about that.

He wants to remain anonymous, but also wanted to speak with us to get the word out about where he says the paint came from.

He says he was crossing the Walt Whitman Bridge around 10 a.m. on his way to work.

"Before I even approached the area, I wasn't able to turn around, I noticed that they were spray painting, open air spray painting on the bridge," he said.

You can currently clearly see a painting project underway on the bridge. It's maintained by the Delaware River Port Authority.

Officials confirm they are priming the bridge cables right now.

The owner of the Lexus says he doubts he's the only one who got hit with the paint.

We spoke with Port Authority CEO John Hanson. First he wants to apologize to the owner of the Lexus and anyone else impacted Friday.

But he says there's good news. This won't cause permanent damage. What might have got on your car can be removed quickly.

"The paint that's being used is an acrylic dry drop paint. By the time it goes eight to ten feet it is essentially specks of paint dust," Hanson said.

He says it'll come off with a detailing.

Hanson went on to explain how this likely happened.

"Somehow the containment was breached. Not sure how - probably a strong gust of wind," he said.

And if you notice your vehicle has the white specks on it now, you can give the Port Authority a call.

"If they contact us we will make sure that they're reimbursed if they have it done on their own or that somebody will come out to wherever they are and detail it and remove the dust for them," Hanson said.

The owner of the Lexus confirms he called the Port Authority and they've given him 100 percent cooperation to get that "paint dust," as the CEO calls it, removed.

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