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Massive tragedy unfolding... Notre Dame Cathedral on fire
- Thread starter Gary7
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I am not a fan of organized religion myself myself but that is flat out wrong.
The fact that it is a church is irrelevant. It is a architectural masterpiece, that displays the history of France, and is the pride of a country. Just look at the people who were crying in the streets. People have devoted their entire life to building Notre Dame. It probably adds up to more then 30.000 years of people hours.
It is not even owned by a church, it is owned by the French government, aka the people.
The fact that it is a church is irrelevant. It is a architectural masterpiece, that displays the history of France, and is the pride of a country. Just look at the people who were crying in the streets. People have devoted their entire life to building Notre Dame. It probably adds up to more then 30.000 years of people hours.
It is not even owned by a church, it is owned by the French government, aka the people.
You know, there are a lot of different people from different backgrounds posting in this thread. Some who rarely agree on anything. Some are religious and some (like myself) are not. But they've all managed to be respectful and realize that this is a situation of importance and history and didn't come in to take a trolling shot across the bow. Until you.
Infraction for trolling. Comments to PM.
NY Times: How The Fire Spread.
It's really shocking when you read about the nature of the structure. The attic was like a super tinderbox waiting for a spark. The wood so old and dry. The attic space extremely dry and dusty. I don't know if there would be much they could do to prepare it for better fire resistance. Meanwhile, the restoration project that was underway was under-funded as it was (meaning there likely wasn't anything allocated for addressing this issue).
At this point, the restoration pool has gone up to 600 million Euros (about $675 USD) and the pledges keep coming. Great news! I just hope as part of this restoration, a modern fire suppression system is also installed.
This should also be a wake-up call to all the other ancient cathedrals over Europe that are also laden with very dry wood in dusty attics.
Tonight, April 16th, the WTC Freedom Tower spire will be lit up in the colors of the French flag as a sign of solidarity.
It's really shocking when you read about the nature of the structure. The attic was like a super tinderbox waiting for a spark. The wood so old and dry. The attic space extremely dry and dusty. I don't know if there would be much they could do to prepare it for better fire resistance. Meanwhile, the restoration project that was underway was under-funded as it was (meaning there likely wasn't anything allocated for addressing this issue).
At this point, the restoration pool has gone up to 600 million Euros (about $675 USD) and the pledges keep coming. Great news! I just hope as part of this restoration, a modern fire suppression system is also installed.
This should also be a wake-up call to all the other ancient cathedrals over Europe that are also laden with very dry wood in dusty attics.
Tonight, April 16th, the WTC Freedom Tower spire will be lit up in the colors of the French flag as a sign of solidarity.
I came across some pictures from when I visited Paris my junior year in high school, 22 years ago.
I saw some folks posting pictures they took from the towers, around the net. Clearly, we can see the scaffolding around the towers in the last picture showing there was renovations going on up there, which is probably why I didn't go up there. I certainly would have if I could.
I saw some folks posting pictures they took from the towers, around the net. Clearly, we can see the scaffolding around the towers in the last picture showing there was renovations going on up there, which is probably why I didn't go up there. I certainly would have if I could.
Wow you're a sad sack.
Beyond the religious significance it's seems that you can't see the historical significance.
The building is 850 years old.
If it had been say a prison, it most likely would have been torn down 750 years ago.
The preservation by the church gives us an actual, not an artist's rendition of the skills of artisans 850 years ago.
Also all people with religion are not all self righteous. It's sad that you think that.
I suggest you take LoB's warning and back off comments like this. We stand to learn a lot from the past. Or should we disregard Stonehenge, the Pyramids (all of them) or the Parthenon? They are all products of different religions...? Before you bring it up, saying they are relics of a defunct faith is bull. Catholic church was pretty much a different institute when Norte Dame was built. Celebrating Christmas was considered immoral for a long time, which is part of the reason why we have the term "X-mas".
This is like pouring lemon juice into someone's wound while saying "You got hurt because of your religious beliefs." It seems you're unable to see just how callous it was to come in here and attempt some kind of panning on religion. This is not about religion. This is about a cherished historical relic, a long standing icon of France. If you have any dignity at all, you'd apologize and delete your post.
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I've been wondering about that as well. What kind of liability does a construction company take on when working on a priceless historical structure? Does the French government have an insurance policy on the building? I expect not--nobody would want to insure it, for the replacement cost would be astronomical. However, if a company is tasked to do work on something like this, they must have SOME kind of accountability, some contractual obligation of being financially bound. Because otherwise, you'd have insufficient oversight and impetus to prevent some untrained or uncaring worker doing something terribly stupid, like starting a fire with a lit cigarette butt. I'd expect that with the immense costs involved, there would be so much precaution. I'd expect some official on-site monitoring all renovation activity. You could rig up wireless cameras for the express purposes of documenting the effort, but also to ensure that workers do their utmost to be careful--because if they're not, they'll be held accountable.
In the bible it says that God has righteousness. But the followers are told to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
But I'm not sure how you could feel that an entire religion is self righteous, as every church or congregation or Sunday pancake breakfast is made up of, dozens or millions of individuals.
Only the Catholic Church has one top leader and there are millions of Catholics that don't follow everything that he says.
Maybe you think the Pope is self righteous.
Just a word or two of caution - it is never good to feed a troll.
Yep, because it ends up amounting to:
Also, trolls will take any trophy you've given them, then try to win another.
Oh wow!
Could you imagine being the guy that is sitting home today thinking about how he tossed his cigarette butt into the trash can under the step ladder?
I wonder how long it will take them to discover the cause?
Maybe it was as simple as a shorted out wire.
These days we see mistakes made in critical areas, where a trusted company gets negligent and then finally something goes wrong. Like Boeing and its 737 Max series aircraft. So it could be the construction company got lax and didn't exercise proper oversight on the operation. Or someone experienced made a choice that was just wrong and they didn't realize it, like plugging in equipment that makes a large draw on power, but is using the old wiring in the building instead of bothering to set up an external feed... then that wiring overheats, catches fire. If it was something utterly tragically stupid like a flung cigarette butt not fully extinguished, it would be hard to prove because I imagine that the material would've been vaporized in the extreme heat. They do know it started at the base of the spire. So everyone on the crew will be checked for everything they did and when they did it. No doubt there will be interrogations. Anyway, a lot to speculate on, so it makes sense to give things time before getting fixed on any conclusions.Oh wow!
Could you imagine being the guy that is sitting home today thinking about how he tossed his cigarette butt into the trash can under the step ladder?
I wonder how long it will take them to discover the cause?
Maybe it was as simple as a shorted out wire.
I hadn't even considered that. Dang! There's some special kind of wood I heard about that was used for some ships, because not only was it very strong, but also very dense. One would hope that it's still around and available for something like this.
True. But I'm thinking what might be more expedient is to provide a metal alloy framework and then cover with a genuine wood veneer. This is an area that isn't shown to the public, so there's no real need to be 100% original. And the need for better resistance to fire is even more great, considering the vulnerability of solid wood.
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