Changing the face of Charleston : The unbuilding of the Grace and Pearman Bridges
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Unbuilding Highlights
(Apr 10)
Meeting St. Stories
(Jul 10 2006)
East Bay Stories
(Oct 10 2006)
Drum Island Stories
(Feb 17)
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(Apr 3)
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(Apr 3)
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(Mar 27)
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(Feb 28)

August 14, 2005: Pier extraction

With this addition of these photos, our bridge story has moved to the next level. Sparky Witte from Mt. Pleasant grew up here, has walked and bicycled the old bridges more times than he can count and captured the next phase of removing the I-26 overpass. Here are his photos showing the extraction of one of the pairs of piers and their cap. As you can see, the Testa guys are not only surgeons, but also dentists - just imagine a tooth extraction with two of the Stanley-LaBounty hydraulic units.

Positioning the grapple and shear to start the pier extraction (left) and cutting the far pier (right)

With the shear, cutting the near pier (left) and a gentle pull from the grapple (right)

Gentle lowering of the cap and upper pier segments

Continued lowering of the cap and pier segments until the tooth extraction is complete

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Attribution: C. Frank Starmer and Sparky Witte from http://oldcooperriverbridge.org