Building the Ravenel Bridge


After all the photos I took, I've tried to arrange them in some order based on various topics I found interesting.

And a reminder from T.S. Eliot (East Coker from the Four Quartets) 

Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Home East Bay Ramp Last Shark Fin Closing Main Span Gap Main Span Paving Building a cable Erecting a pipe Last Stay Cable Opening Events Engineering Insights Stories of Bridge Folks Erecting Steel High Steel Staging workflow First site visit Loading The Traveler Freyssinet Birthday Bridge Art Bridge Blog Unbuilding the Grace and Pearman Bridges About me Photo_Essays

August 1, 2004 - a surprise

This morning, there is a storm off the Charleston coast (see the IR image on the right), so I delayed my bicycle ride until about 8am to get better light. Surprise, two of Mt. Pleasant's finest joined my photo trek and ran interference for me. A much safer bridge for joggers and bicycle photographers and a just-recovering grandfather of 11.

The bridge is anchored to the river bed via cables on the east (seen in the foreground of the left photo) and west approach sides of the deck. These cables originate on the deck of the approach sides of the deck, extend through the base of each pylon and attach to the ship channel side of the deck, thus providing some additional stability to the deck structure. With storm season now started, it will be interesting to see the stabilizing system at work. More about the hurricane cables are on the details page.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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