Unbuilding the Grace and Pearman Bridges


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.
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December 11, 2005:
Unbuilding the Grace Bridge
A family affair for Pio and his team

A look at the worksite. Pio, Richie, Brad, Ted and probably some others are removing both the roadway and the girders

Here is the end of the Grace Bridge -

and a recently removed girder

and the remaining cross beam support structure

Pio and his team are working their way up to the peak of the Grace - so here is a view of the down hill to-do segment

M1 is the first Mt. Pleasant support east of C4, which is the last Cooper River support - which anchors the cantilevered section

Looking toward the Pearman, Mickey and his Advanced Blasting team are starting to load M1-M5 for unbuilding this Friday

Here is a clower view of M4 (left) and M2 (right) and the red marks that indicate loading points

If all goes well, M1 - M5 will disappear at the end of the week.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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