Noise from low-flying planes is driving East Boston’s Eagle Hill residents to their wits’ end, shaking their houses and waking their children, because runway construction at Logan International Airport has altered regular flight paths, bringing hundreds of planes over their heads.

“Sometimes it’s scary because they look like they’re going to hit the houses, and you duck, you know. It’s a reflex,” Eagle Hill resident Michelle McDonald said.

On May 15, Massport shut down runway 4R-22L — which typically serves more than 3,000 planes a month — to resurface it. That forced Massport to divert planes that normally use the runway to other flight paths, hitting East Boston hard.

“It’s really bad,” said Sal Golisano, who has lived in East Boston for nearly 65 years.

“The planes are loud, they’re shaking the houses … The planes are flying so low that you can see the pilot and passengers.”

East Boston resident Antonio Avanti said noise and vibrations from the increased plane traffic were so bad that his teenage daughter woke up in the middle of the night.

“She couldn’t go back to sleep,” he said. “It was scary.”

The Herald recorded decibel levels of arriving jets over East Boston and clocked in some planes at nearly 90 dB from street level.

Prolonged exposure to sounds above 85 dB can cause hearing loss, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

State Rep. Adrian Madaro, born and raised in Eagle Hill, said he can usually tune out noise from jets but “this summer it’s been a little bit more difficult to do that, due to the increased flights.

“Some moments it’s been unbearable, frankly,” Madaro said.

Massport representatives briefed residents of affected communities at public meetings before they started construction and detailed the influx of flight traffic during the runway shutdown. Madaro said constituents who missed the meetings have been alarmed by the sudden onslaught of airplanes.

Massport CEO Thomas P. Glynn said he was sympathetic to residents’ frustrations, but there is not much he can do. The runway has to be resurfaced.

“It creates a lot of negative impacts for people who are on flight paths that normally are used less,” Glynn said.

“We’re very mindful of the fact that it is creating a lot of impact in several of the towns and neighborhoods.”

According to Massport, the runway under construction typically accommodates 32 percent of all arrivals — many of those now rerouted over East Boston since work began. Glynn said the runways need to be resurfaced every 10 years.

“It’s an unfortunate but necessary aspect to have a safe runway to have people to land on,” he said.

He added that weather is often another determining factor when the FAA considers a plane’s flight path. He said poor flight conditions throughout much of the late spring may have led the FAA to divert even more planes to typically lesser-used flight paths, unrelated to runway construction.

Massport predicts crews hope to complete the runway work June 23.

They will then replace a fixture at the end of the runway that functions to cushion planes that touch down too close to the end of landing strip.

That project is scheduled to take until November, but Glynn said that flight paths should return to normal after the initial project wraps, before July.

Madaro said that when he explains to his constituents that the situation is temporary, their stress level tends to come down.

“It gives them some measure of comfort that it’s a defined period,” he said.

He encouraged residents to keep reaching out with any questions they may have regarding air traffic and the construction project.

In the meantime, Avanti has advice for his fellow neighbors if they’re losing their patience.

“Put headphones on, and then have some Tylenol PM,” he said.