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

March 13, 2007: Mickey and Manny - what a team

It all started when Sparky headed to the worksite - driving across the Ravenel Bridge

The worksite from the Ravenel

The worksite with the Ravenel Bridge in the background. A completed building project and a soon to be completed unbuilding project

The worksite from the Port

with Manny making final preparations - placing blankets on the top of Grace's last pier

a closer look at the blankets on the top of the pier

and a view of the blankets at the pier base

Manny lifting another blanket

Sparky's setup and Manny in the background finishing the blanket placement

then lifting the spud that anchors the work barge (with Manny's crane and the 1250

a closer view of Manny lifting the spud

and repositioning his barge

The preblast worksite

Before ignition

Then boom

and crumble. Much more impressive than shock and awe

Down

Down

Down

and only the stub of the tooth remains - another Manny job

What's left

and after the blast and smoke cleared

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer