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.
Home Meeting St East Bay Drum Island Mt. PLeasant Pearman Stories Grace Stories Implosions Enginnering Insights Stories of unbuilders Learning Links Bridge Video Bridge Blog Unbuilding Archive All Unbuilding Segments Building the Ravenel Bridge Photo Essays About me
January 27, 2006:
Unbuilding acrobats

Today, Sparky captured the removal of the to half of the A

First - wrap the cables from the crane

then attach to the shackel

Get into position - one burner on each side of the A

and start cutting

Here comes the other team (right)

and start cutting on the right side of the A

a closer view

A duet of burners

then cutting through the edge (left)

and edge (right)

with an acrobatic twist

Then start cutting the top girder (left)

and top girder (right)

another duet for 2 burners and torches

The sections separates

gently lifted

and lowered to the barge

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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