The Associated Press

LOUISVILLE - The McAlpine Lock - closed the last nine days for repairs - will reopen Friday, two days ahead of schedule, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Wednesday.

Traffic will begin moving through the lock on the Ohio River starting at 7 a.m., the corps said.

Louisville district commander and senior engineer Col. Robert Rowlette said dry weather was a positive factor.

Corps spokesman Jon Fleshman said that 15 vessels were waiting to pass through the lock as of Wednesday afternoon.

With no backup lock, the project prevented barges from plying the entire length of the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Ill.

A number of factors are being considered in deciding which ships will pass first, including the urgency of the cargo and how long the ship has been waiting, Fleshman said. Normally, passage through the lock is on a first-come, first-serve basis, Fleshman said.

"They're taking into account some other factors they haven't in the past," he said.

The McAlpine lock was drained of tens of millions of gallons of water which was pumped into the river.

Crews scrubbed the steel gates before inspectors wound along scaffolding to reach cracks near the bottom of the nearly 70-foot-high gates.

The work is continuing around the clock, with two crews on duty 12 hours each.

The cracks were found during a routine inspection by divers in May.

Locks along the Ohio River serve as stairways that allow boats and barges to navigate the 981-mile-long waterway's changing elevation.