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.
and Tim working on the Grace pier near Drum Island
And Pat (and the Capt Gary) repositioning Michael and his 1250
And the blasting worksite - P-11
Here is the template as seen on Monday: A collar that fits around the base of P-11 with guide holes to direct the drilling of the foundation.
Multipurpose Lewis is cutting a guide hole in the template we saw 2 days ago
A good view of the north end of the template, with one hole already loaded
The array of drilling sleeves.
and Lewis finishing cutting another guide hole
Then Lewis mounts the crane and lowers the sleeve
After drilling down about 4", James lowers the bit for drilling into the substructure foundation
After the hole is complete, the drill and drive shaft are removed and the hole is loaded - here James is handing Ken a cylinder of dynamite
and Ken loading
them tamping it into place
measuring the depth
and pouring in some stemming
When loading is complete, the shock tubes are prepared for lifting the drilling sleeve
At the same time, Derrick is drilling
Then a 12' extension of the drive shaft is greased and added
Adding the section
when loading is complete, the sleeve is capped
and the lift cables attached (by James)
and the sleeve is lifted
then Ken and James tie off the shock tubes
The sleeve is then moved to another hole in the template
and lowered
then James checks to see if it is vertically oriented
and the sleeve if lowered
and drilling the next hole starts.
and leaving the drilling worksite
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
C. Frank Starmer