PORT GAMBLE — The Hood Canal Bridge reopened to vehicular traffic at 4:43 p.m. Sept. 9, following a six-hour closure due to a misaligned drawspan.

“WSDOT would like to thank motorists for their patience during this unplanned, extended bridge closure,” Department of Transportation spokeswoman Claudia Bingham Baker reported on the WSDOT website.

“Construction to replace some of the bridge’s anchor cables will continue over the next several months. For the next few days, WSDOT asks mariners to request drawspan openings only during slack tides.”

The bridge closed about 10:30 a.m. when — as Bingham Baker called it — a “confluence of circumstances” caused the drawspan to be pushed out of alignment with the bridge.

A construction company is replacing some of the anchor cables that tie the bridge to the bottom of the channel. While one cable was disengaged, the drawspan was raised to let a vessel through.

“A very rapid high tide pushed the drawspan and when we went to close it, it was no longer aligned and could not be lowered,” Bingham Baker said at the time.

WSDOT sent maintenance crews to the scene to advise motorists on both sides of the bridge that they were in for a lengthy wait. WSDOT also sent email alerts to subscribers on the Port Townsend/Coupeville and Edmonds/Kingston ferry routes.

“We’re hoping once we get slack tide, between 2:30 and 4:15 p.m., we’ll have tugs pushing the drawspan back into alignment. We’re waiting for a slack tide, without the pressure of the tide pressing on the drawspan.”

A WSDOT online traffic camera showed no cars on the bridge at 2 p.m. Many motorists had turned back to wait out the closure elsewhere or took alternate routes.

“The detour is not good,” she said.

Indeed.

Motorists on the Olympic Peninsula side of the bridge needing to get to the east side of Puget Sound had the option of waiting it out, driving Highway 101 to the 5 (roughly a 3.5-hour drive to Seattle, according to Googlemaps), or turning back and taking the Port Townsend/Coupeville ferry and then the Clinton/Mukilteo ferry.

For those needing to get to the Kitsap Peninsula, it was the 101 south to the 3 in Shelton — a 2.5-hour drive to Bremerton, according to Googlemaps.