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.
- Video segments
- Manny does it again
To put it simply, I'm confused by the EXIF time stamps so I am guessing at the sequence. Fortunatly, these guys can't restore overnight what they unbuilt the previous day so I think I've got it right.
The worksite - with the top right section to be cut and removed
Here is Carlos on the far top and ? on the near top coupling the lift bar to the to-be-removed section
A smile from Carlos as he passes the cable loop through the pin and locks it
Robbie positioning himself
Carlos (far top), Nugget (near top) and Robbie - climing the diagonal
and Stan walking the plank
Where is Robbie?
Far lift cable attached
and near lift cable attached
Robbie starts his cut
A closer view
and another close view
Far side and near side cutting
Taking out the cross brace
Nugget starts a cut on the top
Manny's boom, Nugget and Carlos on top
Final cuts on the top sections
Closer
Almost completed
Nugget cutting the outside
and Carlos watching everything
Nuggest finishing the outside cut - from a safe distance - while Carlos sinishes the opposite outside cut
Freed at last
Carlos completes the cut on the other side
and it is also free
and its all up to Manny now. Click and watch this surgical skill
as he lifts and separates
From below
Up, up and away
then rotate and lower
and down it comes, perfectly balanced
down with Paul carefully watching
Manny rotates again
as Paul and Stan guide it
and down
and resting
waiting for the divide and conquor act
Lunch time
Nugget, Manny and his cap
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
C. Frank Starmer