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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Imposions: Prep and boom
(Mar 27)
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(July 23 2006)
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(Feb 28)

January 24, 2006: Neil Myers - night owl

I usually sleep when the night crew is working and I finally realized that catching the night crew in action needed a bit of catching up. And as usual, things don't always go according to plan. Ponch took me up on the Grace in the early evening - here is Neil (from the left), Ponch and Hugh

And in this case, the one of the big Cats developed some sort of arthritis of the shear. Neil is in the foreground - and behind is Larry working away at reversing the shear arthritis. To the right and below is the catch barge for catching the debris (not to be confused with the barge / crane to the right

In the meantime Ponch and Neil and Tod are doing whatever Ponch, Neil and Tod do while Rick is driving

A couple of weeks later - the Grace roadway work was complete and Neil's group was harvesting girders from below while Paul's group was freeing the girders from above. Here is the his small orchestra: The overpass looking south down Immigration Drive. Jackie in his Cat (Paul's Team) above as the Chris and his crane (below) lowers a concrete girder

Neil directing from below while (silent) Paul - directs from above

A month later, Neil's team had worked its way to East Bay. I got to the work site late (meaning about 4am) when most of the action was over. Neil, to the right with his arms folded, has completed his conducting the night symphony orchestra

The night teams taught me a lot - and doing night photos was a big time learning experience for me. Neil made it all possible.

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