Credit: REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

The next step is removing damaged scaffolding.

It’s been over a year since the iconic Notre Dame cathedral in Paris was engulfed in flames, almost completely destroying the famous landmark’s roof and spire and rendering the building unsafe for both mass and tourists. It was a truly saddening event, but reconstruction crews have been working constantly since then to gradually restore the cathedral to its former glory. Well, they were working constantly, but then, y’know, pandemic happened, and things had to get put on hold for a while.

Now, though, things are starting to rev back up. The construction crew is currently beginning work on one of the most difficult parts of Notre Dame’s reconstruction efforts: removing the damaged scaffolding. When the roof was burned, multiple pieces of the scaffolding were melted and fused together. They can’t be simply yanked off; they’re completely welded to the building. Removing them will require strength, precision, and a spot of acrobatics.

“It’s the last check-up before open-heart surgery,” Christophe-Charles Rousselot of the Notre-Dame Foundation told Reuters. “The rope workers will swing from tube to tube to cut up the scaffolding. … It is an extremely complicated, very delicate operation that has been prepared for months.”

Credit: Thibault Camus/AP

It’s going to be a long and arduous process, with Rousselot estimating the whole thing will take the entire summer to complete at the absolute minimum. Once the scaffolding is removed, though, then the crew can get into the nitty-gritty of the building, with the next most important task being checking the structural integrity of the ceiling vaults.

Notre Dame officials are hoping that the entire restoration effort can be completed and the building ready to host mass by 2024. This is, coincidentally, the same year Paris is supposed to host the Olympics.