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.
THe worksite - with Carlos and Robbie in the man lift and Manny's crane to the right
But first - on Wednesday, Mickey will implode the T-2 substructure - here already drilled and ready for loading: looking south
and looking north
Another view of the worksite
The barge setup with the man lift
Here an almost-X marks the spot - Carlos and Robbie above and Michael and Ben below
and Michael and Ben below
Carlos - the flag planter on the Grace mainspan (last March 1) giving Sparky the ok.
Robbie drilling with the pneumatic drill. How does Robbie know where to drill?
Ken and Mickey have diagrammed the drilling pattern
as seen here
Robbie letting the drill do the work while Carlos just chills a bit
While below, Ben is drilling while Michael does his thing
The gentle force of the man basket keeping the pressure on the drill as it penetrates the concrete
With the moon looking on - sort of as a supervisor
Some Sparky art work - the Ravenel between two piling supports
Robbie doing some serious drilling
Then Carlos removes the bit and
and removes the extension
inserts it for starting a new hole
carefully
Inserting and locking the bit
and positioning the man basket
and starts drilling
with the moon to the right
Another good view of the worksite
Michael and Ben - going up
until they are in position
What a picture - Carlos and Ben above the moon while Michael and Ben are below the moon
With a flag flying from Manny's crane
Ben drilling
Our quartet
With the moon
and Sparky on the way home
See ya'll Wednesday
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
C. Frank Starmer