January 4, 2006:
Preparing for the Mt. Pleasant pier
Mt. Pleasant is going to build a loooong pier out into the Cooper River
on top of the bases of the Pearman piers. This requires that the caps
and columns be removed down to some point - that, in this case, is painted
red on each column. More precision work. Below you can beging to see
the strategy unfold - dropping the piers down to the red lines just above
the water level and then later, adding the floor girders and doing some
reverse unbuilding - sometimes known as building.
Here is the Pearman worksite - only a few girders left to be harvested
Harvested girders ready for the Reef Transplantation Procedure
Here are the exposed floor girders. If you ignite your curious eyes, you will
see the stub of a pier base between the 4th and 5th girders (from the right)
Hiding between the girders is a view of the preparation for the Mt Pleasant
pier.
Looking from the Grace Bridge, you can see the red marks at the bottoms of the
columns - just above the high water level -
marking the foundation for the Mt. Pleasant fishing pier (Click image for
a larger view)
Here is the barge with the 1250 (resting) that will reduce the columns to the
height of the red marks
Another view showing Mickey's crew drilling vertical holes
Another view of the array of piers.
So, by now you are wondering how will they drop the columns near the shore.
Shown here are a pear of flotation tracks. The idea is to mount an
excavator on the top of these and simply drive out to the piers that are
close to the shore and then hammer them down to the red marks.
