Disaster management plan of the gods
Credit to Author: BEN KRITZ, TMT| Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2019 16:14:15 +0000
IF you happened to be awake in the very early hours of Tuesday morning, as I was, you may have watched in real-time horror as the iconic Notre Dame cathedral in the heart of Paris went up in flames. As apocalyptic as the disaster appeared to be, however, if it had not happened, the rest of us would have missed out on an incredible lesson on how to deal with unspeakable calamities.
After the Vatican itself, Notre Dame is probably the most renowned site in Western Christendom, and it is virtually impossible to overstate its historical and cultural significance. Its loss would be catastrophic for the city of Paris, France, and humanity in general, which is why the authorities in France have a plan in place to ensure that never actually happens.
The cathedral is located on the Ile de la Cite in the Seine River, the very center of Paris (the island, once upon a time, was all there was of Paris), on the site of two even older churches. Notre Dame in its current form was completed in 1260 after about 150 years of construction, although through the years there have been various modifications to it. It is considered one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture ever built, and houses a collection of secular and religious art treasures of incalculable value. About 13 million people a year – roughly 30,000 per day – visit the cathedral.
As the disaster was unfolding Tuesday night, a common lament in news reports was that Notre Dame had withstood 750 years’ worth of clumsy tourists, revolutions, wars, floods and other natural disasters, only to be undone by a construction accident. Although the specific cause of the blaze is still being investigated, it is assumed to be the result of restoration work being done on the cathedral’s 90-meter spire.
Notre Dame’s apparent immortality is not what it seems, however. The cathedral has suffered considerable damage through the centuries, and was wrecked even more comprehensively than it is now in the early days of the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution, when it was attacked by a mob as a symbol of the aristocracy and Church oppression. The gutted hulk was christened the “Temple of Reason,” and had to wait for a few forlorn years for Napoleon Bonaparte to seize power and order it restored. That project took 60 years to complete, and gave the cathedral the lead-sheathed wooden spire that is now a heap of charred rubble on the church’s floor.
That earlier restoration a century-and-a-half ago also provided the remarkable plan for dealing with future disasters, and which will result in Notre Dame being restored to its former glory. The “protocol,” as the French describe it, has two parts, first the response to a disaster, and then the recovery.
As the fire progressed, many people on social media and in news reports were baffled as to why the French firefighters did not seem aggressive to fight it at first. That was because they were following a strict strategy based on what can be replaced and what cannot: First, save the people, then save the art, then save the altar and as much of the cathedral’s interior furnishings and fixtures as possible, and only after all that try to save the structure. For the most part, it worked; there were no deaths and only a few injuries among the firefighters, and virtually all of the priceless artworks and religious relics were safely removed. There were of course some things that could not be saved – the cathedral lost most of its historic stained-glass windows, and its ancient pipe organ was badly damaged – but the truly irreplaceable things were protected, and quickly enough that the firefighters could at least preserve the basic structure.
Now comes the second stage in the plan, the restoration. The reason why Notre Dame burned so ferociously in spite of being a large stone building is that it was full of wood. The spire and the entire roof framework were made of oak beams, and much of the interior structure was wooden as well. By some estimates, the wood inside Notre Dame is equal to a forest of about 21 hectares.
Here the French have demonstrated a remarkable bit of foresight. During the cathedral’s first restoration in the early 1800s, the government realized that disaster might strike again in the future, and planted a farm of oak trees at Versailles, outside the city. Those trees are now 160 years old, a ready-made supply. Some of them would be needed to rebuild Notre Dame.
The disaster and eventual restoration of Notre Dame provides a couple of good lessons about dealing with a calamity. First, think of the future; disasters have a nasty way of repeating themselves. Second, prioritize what is most important; a building can be built again, a life cannot. And finally, even if there is an apparent low risk of disaster, institutionalizing “what if?” scenarios allows them to be passed from generation to generation, and ensures that people will be prepared to act when they need to.
ben.kritz@manilatimes.net
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