Alexandra Schneider was running an errand downtown with her son, Brian, late Tuesday morning when the Martin Luther King, Jr. Bridge broke down, blocking their route.

She opted to detour using the Craig Memorial Bridge, but then paused along the Maumee River near the MLK bridge so she and Brian, 4, could watch a freighter glide by once city workers got the bridge’s balky East Toledo drawspan to lift properly.

“Look, they’re waving,” Ms. Schneider told her son, who looked toward crewmen aboard the M.V. Federal Rideau but resolutely kept his hands in his warm coat pockets. “That would be a cold job to be working on that ship,” she mused.

A short time later, with some coaxing and cajoling, the bridge was locked back down and reopened to traffic, more than two hours after the first attempt to open it for the ship headed upstream to load soybeans at one of The Andersons’ elevators.

David Welch, Toledo’s commissioner of streets, bridges, and harbor, said the bridge was waylaid by an electrical problem on the East Toledo side that may have been a lingering effect of high wind last week.

Power relays tripped causing the bridge’s brakes to lock, he said, and workers had to make sure the brakes could be unlocked safely before switching to auxiliary power. The East Toledo drawspan first was lowered to street level, then fully raised to let the freighter pass.

With the Anthony Wayne Bridge shut down for a major overhaul, the MLK bridge’s problems sent a surge of traffic over to the Craig bridge, the closest alternative.

“Traffic over there was crazy trying to get over here,” Ms. Schneider said.

At least she had an alternative route. For Philip Hoffman, a downtown Toledo resident walking over to The Docks to pick up a paycheck on his day off, there was nothing to do but stand in the wind on the MLK bridge’s sidewalk.

“I just hanging out waiting for [it] to go down,” he said.

And when the two drawspans dropped into place, several pedestrians and bicyclists dashed across from the East Toledo side before the gates came up, just in case the bridge was going to go up again.

The problem began about 10:13 a.m., and the freighter was signaled to go through shortly after noon. The MLK bridge reopened to vehicles at 12:30 p.m., and several test lifts were done later in the afternoon.

Contact David Patch at: dpatch@theblade.com or 419-724-6094.

First Published December 3, 2014, 5:00 a.m.