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 28, 2006:
Mt. Pleasant pier foundation and a wave from Michael

My Saturday rounds start at the Pearman ramp. Here is the Pearman worksite - note that all the Pearman supports have been leveled

In the distance is the jackup barge, parked at C-2

While I was walking up the Grace ramp, I saw a barge with an excavator being pushed toward the port. Richie said this was Michael so he phoned Michael and Michael waved back

Here is the progress with drilling C-4 to C-1 supports. C-4 has been drilled for explosives, the top of C-3 has been drilled from the top of the jackup barge and C-2 looks like it is being prepared for drilling. C-1 has already been drilled (as shown in the link shoing both D-28 and C1).

A closer look at C-4 - C-1

From here, you can see that the Pearman supports have all been unbuilt to the red lines and ready for building the Mt. Pleasant observation and fishing pier

and in the background, the Coleman Recycle Center is getting a clean-up

Something new - a Jackie and his grapple on the left and on the right, is Scotty and a rather large electromagnet - picking of the residual pieces of rebar. Neil Myers is hidden between the two.

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C. Frank Starmer

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