February 4, 2006: The night team: Rich, Jackie, Lewis and Scotty
In today's mail I received several copies of the December 2005
issues of the trade journal:
Concrete Openings
In it is an article:
Changing the Face of Charleston and the work done by
Concrete Cutting and Breaking in Michigan. I met Rich, one of their
team last fall when he was cutting roadway segments on the Pearman bridge and
several of these photos found their way into the journal. I knew Rich would
be working tonight because his wife, Kami, sent me email a week ago telling
me that Rich was coming down for some more work. So off I went in search
of the night team.
I miss Richie Bagan and his smile tonight. He is back in Boston due to a death
in his family - so these night photos are for Richie and his family.
Video segments
Tonight's story
First a surprise. A number of the PBC team moved to a new project
in Pensacola. Marvin Tallent was one of my professors of building-ology
and here is a night photo of a pile driving rig getting ready for
work in Pensacola
Driving over the Ravenel Bridge to the worksite
What a difference a year makes.
Driving was impossible a year ago - here are a couple of photos from a
year ago: The gap between the two halves of the main span - tough
to jump over this. Below, you can see the Pearman and Grace in the
background. These photos reflect Marvin's opening up channels for me to
closely watch the building processes.
and the west approach gap as seen from my bicycle on the Pearman Bridge
Back to today:
Meanwhile, the Coleman Recycling Center at the base of the Grace Bridge on
the Mt. Pleasant side. It should be obvious that it is night and also
not raining.
This is a view of the worksite. The Ravenel bridge on the left and
one of the night lights that illuminates the worksite on the right.
Rich had just finished cutting his grid so Jack, Scotty and Rich took a quick
break (don't tell Steve) and looked at the magazine and our local star.
Last August, I learned some night photo skills from Stephen SetteDucati - and
here are some of the results. The new Ravenel Bridge in the background,
Jackie's grapple in the foreground and Grace's skeleton - removed by
Pio's team today.
I really enjoy watching Jackie and his surgical approach to roadway removal -
here, picking up a slab
Rotating
and placing it on the roadway
Turning around to get the next one
taking a bite of road
chewing on it a bit
rotating
and rotating with an interesting blur
and placing it on top of the first one
Then returning for the next section
Thinking a bit
a nice view of jaws
taking the next bite
rotates again
Now, turn on your curious eyes. Lewis flys in with his cub
and quicker than you can blink - he is gone - only the trace
of his headlights
Lewis comes back for some more. Jackie is positioning them
and the blur is Lewis in his cub preparing pushing them down to Scott.
Again - no Lewis - just headlights
and Jack's jaws
Rich moves his saw back to make a center cut along the axis of the roadway
Then like Lewis - Rich is just a blur
WHen he gets to the shoulder, there is an angle iron cap - so its July 4th
on the Grace Bridge
Cutting more deeply into the shoulder - only a few pieces of rebar to cut
through
Then Rich is a blur again
and now making transverse cuts
a little deeper and here, is cutting through some rebar
and more July 4th .
I have spliced together the photos of Rich and his concrete cutting
machine into a short
mpeg video (10 Mb). Enjoy
and good night