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.

July 12, 2006: Mickey and Ken
P-10 is gone and waits for the 995

The Changing Face of Drum Island and the Cooper River
Look at Drum Island and the Ravenel bridge last October 1

and October 20

and last December 6

and today

Here is the worksite with Michael's 1250 and P-8 in the background

and how it looked on January 25, 2006 with Grace and Pearman skeletons lurking around behind Cousin Arthur

Our reference photo with pier labels

Introducing P-10

Almost unbuilt P-9 (left) and Michael working on P-8 to the right

Michael's 1250 whacking away at P-8

Timmy's hammer on C-2 after cleaning up from Friday's show and P-9 in the center

Mickey's starting gun - the transmitter

Frame by frame ignition and initial detonation

T = 0.000      T = 0.033

T = 0.067      T = 0.100

T = 0.133      T = 0.167

T = 0.200      T = 0.233

T = 0.267      T = 0.300

T = 0.333      T = 0.367

T = 0.400      T = 0.433

T = 0.467      T = 0.500

T = 0.533      T = 0.567

T = 0.600      T = 0.633

T = 0.667      T = 0.700

14:55:08 - Before. Note the red shock tube array on the top of P-10

14:55:09 - Sparky got a great shot of early fractionation of P-10 base

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14:55:33

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

C. Frank Starmer

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