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)
Pearman Bridge Stories
(Apr 3)
Grace Bridge Stories
(Apr 3)
Imposions: Prep and boom
(Mar 27)
Unbuilding Bridge Blog
(July 23 2006)
Unbuilding Challenges
(Mar 13)
Learning Links
(Feb 20)
Unbuilding Stories
(Mar 13)
Video and Sounds
(Feb 28)

March 11, 2006:
Town Creek Alive - ABS, Testa and Cashman

Sparky was out today (I'm driving back to Charleston tomorrow) and caught Mickey's team with Silas and Brett running the John Henry and drilling holes in T-3, the marine Testa duet (Jackie Foley playing the shear and Steve DeMello playing the grapple) retrieving the Grace cantilever skeleton, Pat and Farmer pushing and shoving things around and Pio with the Drum Island exiles.

But first - here is Liza - Sparky's daughter. What better place for a photo than the Pearman memorial pier and the Ravenel Bicycle/Ped lane.

and the Silas, Brett and the John Henry drilling holes into the T-3 substructure. Earlier, Michael clean off the top face of T-3 so that Silas and Brett could have at it without tripping over all the residual rebar - a result of 3 months of hammering.

but the main attraction is retrieving the remains of the Grace cantilever truss

Helping with the retrieval

and more help

The grapple (Steve) with jaws open and the shear (Jackie) with jaws open ready to attack

A section of the truss

with Jackie handing off a section of truss to Steve. Jackie's shear takes a bite and with the hands of a skilled quarterback, passes the piece to the Steve and his Dale Earnhardt grapple who then moves it to the disposal barge.

Pio, Leon, Ryan? and ?

Silas and Brett - playing the John Henry and drilling away on T-3 (aka Tenacity of Purpose) while Jackie (right)thinks about the last Grace fragment and Steve (left) places the last truss segment in his sandbox.

A wave from Pat and Farmer and the Capt. Gary

and the Jackie pondering the leftovers from today's retrieval. Look at Steve (left) with his Dale Earnhardt cap, sitting on his Dale Earnhardt cushion, and thinking Dail Earnhardt thoughts.

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