Most of the region’s doctors, along with large hospitals, trauma and birthing centers, are on the Vermont side. Larry Tuner of Moriah, N.Y., said his wife was scheduled for surgery in Vermont soon  which will mean hours of driving or riding the ferry to see her.

A temporary ferry will start running from the bridge site in late January, and a new bridge is scheduled to be finished by the summer of 2011, said John Zicconi, a spokesman for the Vermont Agency of Transportation. Many residents say the timeline is too slow to help businesses that are suffering now.

“We lost our life’s blood,” Ms. Cloutier said of Vermonters. “They lost their life’s line,” she said of New York residents.

It used to take Carole St. Pierre about a half hour to get to her job at B. F. Goodrich in Vergennes, Vt., from her home in Crown Point, N.Y. Now she wakes up around 3 a.m. to drive to a shuttle bus that takes her to a ferry that leaves at 6 a.m. She leaves work at 3:30 p.m., then reverses the trip, arriving home after 5 p.m.

Image The ferry between Essex, N.Y., and Charlotte, Vt., is one of two that crosses the lake in winter. Credit... Caleb Kenna for The New York Times

She and her co-workers feel like their lives have been upended  one had to quit a second job in Vermont because he could not get home, and has lost $1,600 in income since the bridge closed.

“I’ve fallen asleep with my head on the keyboard,” Ms. St. Pierre said during a shuttle van ride to catch the ferry home on Monday afternoon.