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.
October 05, 2005 12:31
Dropping a Pearman column just like dropping a tree - almost
October 11, 2005 10:00
Dropping the Town Creek segment of the Pearman Bridge
October 22, 2005 10:53
Preparing the Pearman piers for blasting
November 15, 2005 10:03
Dropping the Drum Island cantilevered section of the Pearman
November 30, 2005 6:30
Loading and sequencing D-25 with explosives
November 30, 2005 15:53
Imploding Pearman Pier D-25
December 06, 2005 10:01
Dropping the Town Creek Section of the Grace Bridge
December 16, 2005 14:01
Dropping Pearman piers M1-M5 with style
January 09, 2006 10:04
Early start, loading and imploding Pearman D-24
January 11, 2006 15:01
Practice makes perfect: Dropping D-27 with remote ignition
January 17, 2006 15:57
Mickey and his ABS team drop D-23 and top D-25
January 18, 2006 13:36
Gone is T4 - the last Drum Island Pearman support
January 22, 2006 11:45
Mickey Rogers and his ABS team
January 24, 2006 15:05
Drilling the T4 base for explosive disassembly
January 25, 2006 14:05
Adventures with Captain Bill's jackup barge and Mickey's drilling team
January 26, 2006 15:00
Blasting the T-4 foundation, removing Grace's off ramp and ironworker acrobats
January 28, 2006 8:26
The Mt. Pleasant pier foundation
January 30, 2006 11:53
Blasting D-23 substructure
February 02, 2006 7:34
A golden early morning and loading D-24
February 02, 2006 11:35
Unbuilding the D-24 substructure
February 07, 2006 14:01
Blasting the foundation of Pearman pier D-26
February 14, 2006 10:00
Implosion of D-25 substructure
February 15, 2006 10:00
Explosive fracture of the Grace Cantilever Truss
February 16, 2006 15:00
ABS imploding the M5 Pearman substructure
March 22, 2006 15:01
T-3 and Frank say bye bye
April 04, 2006 14:00
D-27 Substructure. Mickey and his team do it again
April 05, 2006 9:00
Demolition Dynamics: Dropping the east Pearman cantilever
April 11, 2006 14:30
Planting explosives on the truss between P-11 and P-13
April 12, 2006 9:59
Grace trusses between P-11 and P-13 down
April 28, 2006 10:00
Bye bye Grace (Mt. Pleasant side)
May 16, 2006 8:57
The Last Grace Blast and a tribute from the C-17s and F-15s
May 23, 2006 8:40
Oscar and the team preparing for the last Pearman blast
May 24, 2006 10:00
Bye bye to the last Pearman superstructure
June 05, 2006 15:00
Blowing P-12
June 05, 2006 16:10
Drilling the footing with a template - prep for P-11 blast
June 07, 2006 12:57
Preparing to unbuild P-11: A template + drilling + skill
June 16, 2006 14:57
Dropping C-1
June 19, 2006 14:27
Mickey's famous disappearing act - P-7 foundation unbuilt
June 23, 2006 12:56
C-3 takes the plunge
June 30, 2006 13:15
See Mickey's new Copco
June 30, 2006 14:25
Mickey, Ken, Sparky and team: Evaporating the C-4 base
July 06, 2006 14:05
C-2 prep, Mickey and the Discovery Channel
July 07, 2006 11:32
Final prep and sequencing of C-2
July 07, 2006 12:58
Almost the last big blast - C-2, the Discovery Channel, Friends and Families
July 08, 2006 12:13
Timmy cleaning up what Mickey left from yesterday: C-2 base
July 12, 2006 14:55
P-10 says goodbye to Charleston
July 14, 2006 14:50
C-1 base takes a dive
July 26, 2006 7:26
ABS University, Prof. Rogers and the CHS Bomb Squad
July 26, 2006 10:15
Final Examination for the CHS Bomb Squad
August 22, 2006 11:29
Imploding the C-3 substructure - Mickey and Ken at their best
October 30, 2006 15:56
Blasting Grace's foot prints
January 11, 2007 16:43
Mickey, Ken and team loading T-1
January 12, 2007 9:21
T-1 is no more: Mickey and Ken at their best
January 13, 2007 13:11
Sarah, Jordan and Ashley star on the Discovery Channel
January 14, 2007 16:10
Gone is T-2, the last of the Pearman support piers
February 28, 2007 13:21
Preparing the T-2 base for Shelly
February 28, 2007 15:59
Shelly pushes the button and gone is the T-2 foundation
March 13, 2007 10:15
Bringing down the last Grace pier
March 27, 2007 16:00
The last Graceful Blast from Mickey, Michael, Ken and the entire unbuilding team
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
C. Frank Starmer