Fire out, organ intact but work ahead for charred Notre Dame

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By THOMAS ADAMSON

PARIS (AP) — Firefighters declared success Tuesday morning in an over 12-hour battle to extinguish an inferno engulfing Paris’ iconic Notre Dame cathedral that claimed its spire and roof, but spared its bell towers.

What remained was a blackened shell of the monument immortalized in Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” a building that had survived almost 900 years of tumultuous French history but was devastated amid renovation works at the start of Catholic Easter week.

Its iconic twin bell towers remained visibly intact. Paris officials said the world famous 18th century organ that boasts 8,000 pipes also appeared to have survived, along with other treasures inside the cathedral, after a plan to safeguard heritage was quickly put into action.

At dawn, the twin 69-meter towers swarmed with building specialists and architects, looking tiny from the ground as they conducted analysis.

Read more: https://www.apnews.com/abf11681d6164918982e5cbca0957548

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

The 12th-century church is home to a 18th-century organ, relics, stained glass and other works of art of incalculable value, and is a leading tourist attraction.

“The organ is a very fragile instrument, especially its pipes. It has not burnt, but no one can tell whether it has been damaged by water. Nobody knows if it is a functioning state or will need to be restored,” Bertrand de Feydeau, vice president of preservation group Fondation du Patrimoine, told AP.

Repairing the cathedral — including the 800-year-old wooden beams that made up its roof — presents challenges.

The cathedral’s roof cannot be rebuilt exactly as it was before the fire because “we don’t, at the moment, have trees on our territory of the size that were cut in the 13th century,” he said, adding the roof restoration work would have to use new technologies.

[pansypoo53219]

6. PBS 3 in milw(create) had a series of shows called restoration i think & it was

about them restoring a pipe organ in this east coast massive building. had to take out each pipe. & fix all the pieces that make the noise. it can be done. water will melt any rabbit skin glue they use. at least the pipes will be easier to get out.

[Bayard]

2. This makes me so sad

They still haven't determined a cause, but I'm very suspicious of this happening Easter week.....

[moriah]

5. Sadly Holy Week also often involves lots of lit candles.....

I am concerned too, given what has happened in Paris lately, but the terrorists there have mostly targeted civilians.

But I can't forget my own worries about causing a fire from all the lit candles my Paganism sometime has me light, and I was glad my doctor was a fellow Pagan so if I ever fell over during ritual and burned my butt on a candle, I could at least tell *someone* the truth of how it happened and them knowingly laugh, rather than just diagnose me as a fruitcake....

So far nothing has been suggested that indicates arson, more a very old building that was far from fireproof.

[hlthe2b]

3. I'm still overwhelmed by this... I'll take the bit of good news, though...

[OnlinePoker]

4. "...work ahead for charred Notre Dame"

Gee, you think? Really a stupid headline.