NEW ORLEANS — The images of the fire at Notre Dame are reminding many people of the Cabildo fire in 1988 in the French Quarter.
Many scrambled to saved artifacts in that fire as well, and the event taught the state to better prepare to save its historic buildings and artifacts in emergencies.
"I cried," Steven Maklansky, Interim Director of the Louisiana State Museum said.
Nearly 5,000 miles away from Paris, in New Orleans, Maklansky is haunted by the images that have recently come out, and it's reminded him of what happened in 1988.
"I think there was some welding going on with the copper gutters and somehow tragically that sparked a fire which started to consume the building."
The Cabildo has been a Spanish municipal building in the 1700s, later a home for the Supreme Court, and then in 1911 it was restored and opened as a museum. It houses thousands of artifacts.
Back then, firefighters and staff members rushed to save what they could. At one point crews rushed into the museum and grabbed some of the artwork and stacked it along the fence along Jackson Square.
But the building itself was an artifact and its rebuilding may give us a peek at what's going to happen in Paris. After the fire at the Cabildo, a massive effort was launched to restore the roof and top floors, and it finally opened back up in 1994 and has been welcoming visitors since.
"So what you see throughout the third floor of the Cabildo are these beams that were reproduced. they were cut fresh in Florida and then specially aired dry," Maklansky said of the restored beams on the 3rd floor.
And within the museum's collection is a special connection to Notre Dame, an etching of the cathedral produced from an early photographic process called a daguerreotype.
"Interesting, this piece shows Notre Dame without the spire, that was produced later on in the 19th Century."
Today, sprinklers have been added, there's a new protocol to save works in the Cabildo and Maklansky is hopeful the French will learn and rebuild.
"Fortunately, we have the technology to restore the building and thus restore our confidence that our civilization will continue," Maklansky said.