Unbuilding the Grace and Pearman Bridges


For Sparky and myself, curiosity drives passion which in turn fuels our life's engine. Our passion was capturing the story of both unbuilding the Grace (1929 - 2007) and Pearman (1966 - 2007) Bridges and discovering the unbuilders. It takes a lot of passion to track a project from July 2005 until April 2007 - rain, shine, hurricanes or moving to Singapore. We discovered the joy of discovery learning. Ken Canty opened the front door for us - then Steve Testa, Ponch Billingsley and Mickey Rogers opened many side doors. Below are the highlights of what we discovered, who we met and what we learned.

And a reminder from T.S. Eliot (East Coker from the Four Quartets)

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.

April 25, 2006: Charge placement for Friday's event

Only Sparky would brave the elements in Charleston so that I can keep the web page up to date. Here, Demolition Dynamics has been busy placing charges on the Grace truss structure. These face away from Arthur and you can see the kevlar wrapper.

Charges at the base

Charges on the top section

These charges face Arthur and so a protective layer of a piece of conveyor belt - rubberized with a steel mesh interior is wrapped around the outside of the charge - to protect Arthur

A good view of the back side of the used-to-be cantilever

Another view of the back side of the cantilever section

A view of the east exit where Jackie and ? are busy fishing and retrieving the P-11 -> P-13 sections

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C. Frank Starmer

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