Shoring up the leaning lighthouse

OFF MORRIS ISLAND -- The sign says "Danger, Stay Clear of This Area," but it doesn't apply to the few dozen workers who are spending this summer saving the Morris Island Lighthouse.

Six days a week, they arrive by boat and scamper onto a makeshift set of docks, ladders and barges surrounding the brick landmark.

They work 13 hours a day to finish the second phase of its foundation repair, a $2 million project that should ensure the lighthouse can weather nature's worst storms.

Specifically, they're installing 68 concrete micropiles -- the same technology used recently to stabilize Italy's Leaning Tower of Pisa.

These new pilings, about eight inches in diameter and about 60 feet deep, will replace the old wooden pilings that have been eaten up by Teredo worms, actually small saltwater clams known as "termites of the sea.'"

For Al Hitchcock, chairman of the nonprofit group Save the Light Inc., the work is a wonderful sight to behold.

"We were really worried for a couple of years about it being undermined and simply falling over," he said.

Bill Snow, owner of Palmetto Gunite Construction, said the only way to know how compromised the current foundation is would be to tear it down and take a look.

"So we have to assume that it is so compromised we can't count on it," he said.

Vibrating 68 of the pilings into the sand will provide essentially a new, sturdy foundation.

Each pile is designed to support 75 tons, though a stress test last week went well and showed they could support 150 tons. The lighthouse weighs about 4,000 tons.

That work is relatively easy. The more difficult task is ferrying the workers and several tons of supplies to the offshore site each day.

Even on the calmest day, one-foot swells can jostle small boats against the work platforms and temporary docks.

While crews dredged about 15,000 tons of nearby sand and dumped it into the interior of the cofferdam, everything else -- concrete, re-enforcing rods and other materials-- must be hauled to the barge next to the lighthouse.

From there, a crane swings it into the tight work area.

Even water needs to be ferried to the site because using the saltwater would rust the steel re-enforcing rods, causing the new pilings to crack and fail.

Deliveries must be carefully timed to keep the work on track.

"The barge can only carry so much weight, and the crane takes up most of it," Snow said. "We couldn't do this job without a cell phone."

Along with the new pilings, Palmetto Gunite is dredging about 30,000 tons of sand to place within the cofferdam, filling it to about 18 inches from the top. About half of that already is in place; the rest will be put in after the pilings are done.

The work also will include the installation of four inclinometers, special monitors sunk deep into the ground to detect any movement.

"Before you can tell on top, they'll be able to tell in the soil if the soil is moving," Snow said.

Hitchcock likened it to a heart patient who is wired up. "We still have some sufficient cracks in it," he said. "As we're doing the piles underneath, we're being sure something doesn't shift underneath the lighthouse. We can read that remotely," Hitchcock said.

The work also will include a small new dock measuring about 12 feet by 24 feet. The lighthouse won't be open to the public, but the dock will help its caretakers tie up their boats.

The contract calls for work to wrap up by Sept. 1, but the only penalty for missing that deadline is the exposure the contractors' equipment will endure during the heart of the Atlantic hurricane season.

The final phase will repair cracks in the masonry, restore the glass in the beacon and paint the original white and black bands on the outside.

But that will have to wait until Save the Light Inc. can raise more money.

"We've used up about all our money on this phase,'" Hitchcock said. "We need more money, more members, more people donating. We need to encourage people not to think the project is over.

"We've just now gotten to the point of thinking it's going to be stable and will be there for a while."