Truck Driver Dies In Bay Bridge Crash

Maggie Jones, a waitress at Hemingway's on Kent Island, said the unrelenting traffic jam completely changed her day at the restaurant. "Nobody's here. . . . Usually we're totally packed," she said. But with the backup, "nobody's getting off [the road] either way," she said. "I have a lot of locals sitting on the grass out front, just watching the traffic."

Jeffrey Poersch, 45, of Alexandria said his plans to get to Bethany Beach by 9:30 a.m. and enjoy a full day at the beach with his three 8-year-old daughters were foiled. The group got stuck in a 90-minute backup, took a breakfast side trip, made multiple calls to a bridge hotline and finally decided to just drive the usual course -- for as long as it took.

They arrived at the beach at 2:15, and so did the rain. "Our beach day is wiped out," Poersch said.

Poersch said that as he drove past the crash scene, "my thought was, 'That's not supposed to happen. You're not supposed to be able -- with any force -- to leave the bridge,' " he said.

Michael Herndon, 41, of the District said that he and a friend were returning from a weekend in Rehoboth and that it took them three hours and 45 minutes to travel from the Route 50/301 split to the west side of the bridge. His friend missed his 4 p.m. flight at Reagan National Airport. "I've been going to Rehoboth for a long time," he said. "I've never seen it that bad."

At Rehoboth Beach, the traffic backup changed vacation plans in unexpected ways.

Art Beal, manager of Boardwalk Plaza Hotel, said one guest called him to say that "she left her house in Reston at 10 a.m. and she was just hoping she could get here. She had been stuck there for five hours."

At the Breakers Hotels & Suites, just up the road, the front desk offered printouts of alternate routes for people trying to go home. "It's a long ways around," said Jerry Smith, a front desk clerk, of a route that directed people through Wilmington, Del. At check-in time, 3 p.m., only 10 of the registered guests had shown up.

The four-mile-long eastbound span dates to 1952; the westbound span opened in 1973. The older span was last renovated in 1988, when it was redecked, officials said. An estimated 27 million vehicles use the bridge annually. The bridge rises as high as 186 feet.

Motorists can check the Bay Bridge Web site, at http://www.baybridge.com, for information about traffic conditions.

Staff writers Kristen Mack, Martin Weil, Eric M. Weiss and Robert Thomson contributed to this report.