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.

January 15, 2006 Filling up a Grace support

Once again, Sparky has saved the day. Work on the Grace has taken an interesting twist. The concrete support column under the Grace cantilever section is hollow and being filled with sand.

The Pearman and Grace worksite

The Grace worksite - just over truss 34, the oval shaped Grace support and a sand pile

As I understand it, this support is hollow so that it is being filled with sand

Beyond this point, all the Grace floor girders have been removed

A view of the sand filling spout

and looking toward Drum Island, only C-1, C-2 and D-23 (at the Drum Island boundary with the Cooper River) remain.

and looking toward Mt. Pleasant - the roots of the Pearman supports

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

_