The news about the closure of half of the Washington Bridge hit Steven Correia when he walked outside his East Providence home and saw the traffic piling up.

“I’ve traveled to New York, and the cars were just like that,” Correia said. “Off Waterman Ave., close to my house, there were cars lined all the way down. A five-minute drive took an hour and a half.”

Correia, a senior at Bishop Hendricken High School, was one of 36 Hendricken students affected by the closure of I-195 westbound. Students and faculty living on the East Bay suddenly saw their daily commute dry up, and had to take a more out-of-the-way commute to a school located thirteen miles away from the next closest bridge across Narragansett Bay.

While Correia stayed commuting from East Providence on Hendricken’s shuttle bus, he said he knew of other students who lived with friends in the West Bay for the week to avoid the traffic.

“[There were] people staying in Coventry with friends, people staying in Warwick with friends, just living in their house for the week, sleeping every day, bringing all their clothes just so they didn’t have to go through the traffic,” Correia said.

Becan Kegelman, a senior at Hendricken who lives in Barrington, said that he considered living with friends in Warwick or East Greenwich himself, and likely would have if I-195 westbound hadn’t reopened yet.

Kegelman drives himself to school, and said that making the trip to the West Bay last Tuesday was not a fun experience.

“As I got mapped north around East Providence, I started getting stuck in traffic, and the time just started growing,” Kegelman said. “It took me about an hour and a half to two hours the first day, and then the second day was about the same, with a little bit less traffic.”

That Thursday, Kegelman decided to take the long route- driving over the Newport Bridge. It didn’t take quite as long, he said.

Correia is also a member of Hendricken’s theater club, and he said that he had to skip some meetings due to the traffic. Kegelman, a Hendricken basketball player, said that his practices- and the team’s first game of the season- ended up being affected because of the traffic.

“We have four coaches on our team; three of the four come that way anyways,” Kegelman said. “We had a game at Cranston East and I know that took a couple of our coaches about two hours to get to. It’s been tough just in general for everyone.”

With practices and games running over winter break, Kegelman said that the team has had to plan around the traffic that the situation has caused.

Hendricken started their winter break early, with the final day of school before vacation being Friday, Dec. 15. Though the issue is not likely to be as dire once students return- two lanes of I-195 westbound are now running on the other side of the bridge, improving drive times already- Correia and Kegelman hope that the traffic situation will improve more by the time that break ends.

“I’ll still have to plan when I wake up and when I get out, trying to miss some of that bad traffic,” Kegelman said. “But I’m hoping it’ll be better.”