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

January 12, 2007: Mickey and Ken at their best, T-1 unbuilt

Learning Links

History of Non-Electrical Detonators (Courtesy of Dyno Nobel)
More from Dyno Nobelo about NonEl detonation

Video Segments

Friday is a good day - and look what Mickey and his team did.

The worksite: T-1, Container barrier to the right and leftover Grace and Pearman bones in the foreground

and team - Mickey, Ken, Paul, Carlos, Randy and a video crew

Manny's elevator

Carlos with the transmitter and Mickey's tripod. Behind, Mickey and his mobile phone - calling Singapore?

Ken doing the tie in of the shock tube array to the receiver - Mickey and Ken typically use Nonel detonators

Mickey: Advanced Blasting Services and Carlos: Advanced Ironworker Acrobats

The video team from the Discovery Channel

Unsung heros - Manny and Stan

Hollywood at the port

Pre-blast Discovery interview - Chris Starr would call this Discovery Learning

Ken

Manny's elevator on the way up

to the top floor

Hmmm - Mickey has some new caps - where is mine???

Wow - a room with a view

Mickey's setup on the top of T-2

Randy and Carlos looking up from the best seat in the house: atop T-2. Mickey is fiddling around with something (right) next to the transmitter

and a great view of the Ravenel Bridge

A view of the worksite from above

The Discovery Channel professionals- they wear dark shirts!

The worksite from above

another view of the worksite: T-1, shock wave absorbers to the right

Mickey and his D-70 on the Manfrotto tripod. Hey Mickey - I passed my D-70 to my daughter, got a D-200 that takes 5 frames/sec of high res. for your next blast. In the meantime, I have graduated from unbuilding to Singapore insects. Clearly I need to improve my focus - but watch out, I'm catching up.

Manny

and another view of the Ravenel

Just before the blast - the incoming port traffic is stopped

Click image for full display of ignition.
Here is a frame by frame illustration of the ignition and detonation sequence. Before (left) and initial shock tube ignition (right)

T = 66 msec T = 100 msec

T = 133 msec T = 166 msec

T = 200 msec Note the shock tube track from the columns to the cross member T = 233 msec

T = 266 msec T = 300 msec

T = 333 msec T = 366 msec

T = 400 msec Note detonation at the base of each column T = 433 msec

T = 466 msec T = 500 msec

T = 533 msec T = 566 msec

T = 600 msec T = 633 msec

T = 666 msec T = 700 msec

T = 733 msec T = 766 msec

T = 800 msec T = 833 msec

T = 866 msec T = 900 msec

T = 933 msec T = 966 msec

T = 1000 msec T = 1033 msec

T = 1066 msec T = 1100 msec

T = 1133 msec T = 1166 msec

T = 1200 msec T = 1233 msec

T = 1266 msec T = 1300 msec

Sparky, was able to catch the action from Manny's elevator - and what a view. Initial ignition and blast - note the position of the cargo shock absorbers

Here is a high resolution image of the shock tube ignition (crawling up the left column)

Here is the frame by frame view of ignition and detonation. Note Then detonation

Here is a high resolution of the initial detonation. Note that Mickey set charges only in the middle of the pier cap. More important - compare the lateral spread of debris on the left and right. The left side was not wrapped in chain link fence while the right side was. You can clearly see that the fence did a remarkable job of contrining the lateral distribution of the right sided implosion. Nice work, indeed!!!