Decades of Neglect Threatened Notre Dame, Well Before It Burned

PARIS—Years before flames ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral, the landmark’s custodians realized they had a problem.

In 2013, the cathedral hired Didier Dupuy and his son to scale the building and install lightning rods at different points, including its central spire. Gaping holes and cracks they discovered in the lead roofing shocked them. Just below was a dry and dusty space of timber beams, known as “the forest,” that had supported Notre Dame’s roof for centuries.

A job that was supposed to last a couple of weeks took three months as the duo performed emergency repairs before quitting in frustration.

“We told them, you need professionals for this. We can weld, but it’s not pretty,” said Mr. Dupuy, who removed 110 pounds of rust from the cross atop the spire. “The cross was in very bad shape.”

On Monday, Notre Dame’s forest caught fire, incinerating the central spire and most of the cathedral’s roof in a disaster that dismayed the world. Notre Dame, with its limestone facade and stained-glass rose windows, was a resplendent jewel of medieval architecture to most who saw it. On closer inspection, according to church officials, contractors and donors, the cathedral was deteriorating from decades of neglect.

The flying buttresses that sustain its massive limestone walls were weakening. The spire, a fixture on the Paris skyline for nearly two centuries, was taking on water and rotting from the inside out.

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