In Ocean City, hotel keepers and others reacted with concern as word about the repairs began to spread.
"Any time we have a problem with the bridge, it has a negative impact for business," said Michael James, the general manager of Carousel Resort Hotel. "We hope they still come."
Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan called the closings unfortunate but added that "safety does take precedence."
"We encourage people to come early and stay late," he said. "Hopefully it will not discourage people from traveling to the Eastern Shore."
Meehan said September and October are no longer the off-season. "September business is very, very compatible to, if not a little busier than the month of June," he said.
Donna Abbott, the town's public relations director, estimated that about 277,000 visitors descended on the beach town for the Labor Day holiday last year.
State officials said the decision to make the emergency repairs was part of a broader assessment of safety on the bridge - including engineering and traffic enforcement.
"Be assured, our assessment is not over by any means," Freeland said.
The early morning crash on Aug. 10 occurred at a time when traffic was running in two directions on the eastbound span because of work on the westbound span.
An eastbound Chevrolet Camaro apparently crossed the center line and sideswiped the cab of a westbound tractor-trailer, whose driver lost control of his vehicle and crashed into the wall on the other side of the bridge at an estimated speed of 55 mph.
Truck driver John Robert Short, 57, of Willards, was killed as his vehicle slid atop the barrier and his trailer broke down the wall. No charges have been brought in the crash, but Chief Marcus Brown of the Transportation Authority Police said investigators are awaiting the results of the autopsy and toxicology tests of the drivers involved.
Geoffrey Kolberg, chief engineer for the transportation authority, said that after the crash, inspectors using ultrasound and ground-penetrating radar discovered that moisture had seeped into the interior of some concrete barriers and caused corrosion of the steel that anchors the barriers to the bridge deck.
He would not speculate on whether the deterioration contributed to the breach of the barrier by the tractor-trailer. Officials have previously said the barriers were never designed to withstand the impact of such a heavy vehicle.
