The site consolidation and preservation of Our Lady after the fire of April 15, was going to be long, everybody knew about it. The emergency had been given from the start to the securing of the most vulnerable and the out-of-water building whose roof has disappeared in the disaster. This first step is completed, the site is currently focused on the strengthening of the arch that has collapsed in places and that remains very unstable, where it remained in place. Outside, there is a need to maintain the flying buttresses with wooden hangers. Inside, the stained glass in the upper bays of the nave were removed in order to slide in the nave of the structures that will allow to review and consolidate the arches and mouldings.
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But if Our Lady has not experienced rain too important, or strong blows of the wind, since the fire, today it is the heat that raises concerns. Philippe Villeneuve, the chief architect for the historical Monuments, which oversees the site, is in alarm. “My anxiety is that the joints and the masonry, to force it to dry, lose their consistency, their coherence, their structural quality, and all of a sudden, bam, they can fall,” he explained to France 2 during a visit to the site.
To extinguish the fire, tonnes of water were spilled on the roof, water that has seeped into the joints of the masonry, which for the most part date from the building of the cathedral. One hundred days later, the scorching temperatures will dry – up too quickly fear the specialists – these joints and brittle. The risk of further collapse would therefore be increased, and all the more strong that the whole structure is far from being stabilised ; the work of consolidation must continue until the beginning of next year.
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This warm on the construction of Notre-Dame comes at a time when the work had to be interrupted because of the risks of lead exposure to workers. The labour inspectorate ordered that the operations on the site should be suspended “a few days” the time that the companies involved apply the rules in effect when employees are exposed to this type of contamination.
