This sounds wrong.
CC
Some were removed 4 days ago. I saw one report where fire trucks didn’t arrive for 2 hours. Seriously? I agree, something is wrong.
CC,the whole thing is starting to feel orchestrated, like watching a theatrical production. Building closed , all people out, no casualties yet almost total destruction of cathedral, all news media in lockstep perfect harmony from the first moment, all soft news about art, history, priests and artistic interviews, “icon” catch word, terrorism not even hinted, Macron leaping to grandstand and emerge from his precarious position to the great savior. Weird too no one, even holy see, mentions our Lady. Just everything oddly and smoothly running like clockwork. ?
As someone who has actually had the experience of being in a religious community whose Church caught fire, I can tell you that a tremendous amount of stuff can be moved very quickly by a dozen or two motivated people who know what they are doing and are used to working as a team. It wouldn’t surprise me if ND was able to martial five dozen people.
Our Church was much smaller, so we weren’t able to get much from the sanctuary and very little from the nave, but we basically were able to empty the entire sacristy, which contained 95% of the stuff.
With ND’s height, and heat rising, I imagine that they were able to access the sanctuary and the nave for a good long time—and likely 20-40 minutes was all that was needed to get out everything that wasn’t actually carved in stone.
Being in a burning building isn’t best practice in everybody’s books, but not everyone is a snow flake. Provided you have some idea of what you are doing and can keep your head, in some circumstances it is the right thing to do.
Three cheers for the Catholic French, and those French of good will who lent a hand, and a Te Deum and a Non Nobis in gratitude for a far better outcome than I would have ever conceived.