July 9, 2005: Opening the bridge to foot traffic.
It was a rather dark and gloomy day, but in Charleston, the weather is
full of surprises and today was not to be an exception.
The west tower (left) is a bit gloomy. Peo, superintendent of the bridge span
construction is never gloomy. In reality he is
working supervisor in disguise, shown here making last minute adjustments.
Sometimes, though, Peo needs a bit of encouragement - here from Matthew
The rescue squad and our friendly police were waiting ...
Then the first runner from Charleston (David Gibbs) and the first
walker (John Laverne) appeared
Then the early runners from Mt. Pleasant appeared
which brought a bit of magic.
The sun briefly appeared casting wonderful warm
light on the crowd of early morning bridge walkers with a sunlit MUSC in
the background
For almost 2 years, my sweetie (Ellen) has made space for
my weekend bridge data collection adventures. After this morning's
photography, I went home to get her for a walk on our new bridge.
I wanted her to see, up close and personal,
some of what I saw, experienced and learned while looking over the
shoulders of High Steel, PBC and Freyssinet.
In many ways, the photo of her
(on the left) reflects the story of these web pages. Bill Mankin (with
High Steel Structures)
was the first hero of this story. He sent me email about a
year ago, encouraging me to continue the photos, particularly of
the girder erection process, and invited me to visit their facility in
Lancaster Pa (near Rachel and Trevor's home, my daughter and son-in-law).
Here on the
left, she is measuring the height of one of Bill Mankin's shark fins -
which we saw inside
High Steel's fab facility in Lancaster Pa. The shark
fin edge girders were the glue for these photo-essays of the building
of our new Arthur Ravenel Jr. bridge.
Following these girders from Lancaster Pa to their final resting place
introduced me to much of the bridge construction sequence.
Final drilling by High Steel Structures,,
installed by PBC,
anchoring the stay cable pipes
and the
stay cables, designed, engineered, installed and tested by Freyssinet, these edge
girders turned out to be the back door that provided insights into the
bridge building process. This back door was opened by the other heros of these
photo-essays, David Wertz (SCDOT), Wade Watson (PBC), Peo Halvarsson (PBC),
Marvin Tallent (PBC), Olivier Forget (Freyssinet), Philip and Tina Cotter
and Wilbur Poole.
You can read about them on the
"Stories about Bridge Folks page".
On the right, is Ellen and an arriving container ship, part of the rationale
for the new bridge.
And what is a visit to the bridge without the tower in the background.
(And ignore the huge gloom cloud hanging around in an expectant manner.)
Inspite of the clouds, Bill, Wade, Peo, Marvin, Derek, Brian, David,
Wilbur, Philip and Olivier
and his crew are all smiling at what they constructed!
Walking back, everyone was looking, enjoying and beaming with pride - our
new Arthur Ravenel Jr. bridge
