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 20, 2006: Nearing the end of Grace

Watch Manny do it again

Manny - the man of the day

The worksite - Chris and Manny holding the structure together while our ironworker acrobats do their thing

Nugget cutting the roadway frame from the temporary support

and Carlos cutting on the near side

Nugget cutting on the far side

while at the end resting on the Grace pier, Stan and Robbie do the cutting

Carlos continues his surgical cutting

and parallel cutting on the pier end

Robbie cutting

and Stan cutting

This gives a good perspective on Chris stabilizing the pier section while Manny is coupled to the entire roadway frame

A good view of Chris' stablization while Robbie (near side) and Stan (far side) cut

Stan burning through the roadway frame

Inspecting the cut

Final cut on the far side

and its free

Now Chris is running the elevator on the pier side

and Chris, the elevator operator

A final cut on the near side

a closer view of the final cut

Lewis holding one of the tag lines

and Manny starts the Playtex procedure

While the left side is free, something is still connected on the right side

Note the angle of the roadway frame - a small midcourse cut is required

so Carlos makes some more cuts

and checks the other side

Carlos walking back to the elevator

Now both sides are free and Manny can continue the Playtex procedure

Slowly and gently

up a bit

with a bit of spin

and lift

and a little more rotation - almost clear of the temp support

Clear of the support and now lowering the roadway frame

down

down

down

Now showing at a theater near you - Adventure of the Grace roadway frame

and touchdown

The end of the day - Good night and good luck

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer