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.

Home Meeting St East Bay Drum Island Mt. PLeasant Pearman Stories Grace Stories Implosions Enginnering Insights Stories of unbuilders Learning Links Bridge Video Bridge Blog Unbuilding Archive All Unbuilding Segments Building the Ravenel Bridge Photo Essays About me

December 15, 2006: Removal of the superstructure adjacent to the temporary supports

Cutting the last section over the temporary support (3.6 Mb mpg)

Worksite

A different view with the Oxy tanks in the middle

Manny lowering the cable to pick up the lift bar

The lift bar

and positioning it

Nugget starting the cut for the hole for attaching the lift bar cables

and Carlos getting into position

the hole for attaching the lift cable

Cables attached and Manny stabilizing the section

Nugget starts his base cut

and Stan (I think) starting a cut on the opposite side

Carlos on top, Stan and Nugget on the base over the temp supports

Everything ready for the final cuts. Click for a video of cutting and removal

Cutting the near side

and starting the far side cut

continuning the cut

Now cutting the inside cross support

and its Christmas tree lights

A special gift to Charleston's Christmas lights

Completing the far side and near side cuts

Almost complete

Nugget appears to be completing the cut on the near side

While Carlos completes the far side

Then the cross brace cuts

while Carlos completes the far side cut

and Manny starts the playtex lift and separate protocol.

Liftoff

and a little rotation and on the way down

down with a nice view of the Ravenel Bridge in the background

and down

and down

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer