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Experiences of Cathedrals around the world damaged by natural disaster

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As part of the cathedral study trip conducted earlier this year, the group visited the Cathedral of Christ the Light in San Fransisco. This is a completely new cathedral on a different site that was built following the 1989 Lorma Prieta Earthquake. In this situation the community decided not to do a mix of old and new, in contrast with the plans for the future ChristChurch Cathedral.

Bishop John S. Cummins was the bishop during the period before and after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake which claimed the original Cathedral of St. Francis de Sales.

The old church was very badly damaged. After several months, the engineers presented a very detailed report that included an estimate for repair.  It totaled 6.1 million dollars. But when the Bishop asked the chief engineer if it could ever be made safe enough to eliminate any worry about harm in a future earthquake the conversation went quiet.  “Would you feel comfortable being in this repaired church with your wife and family during the next very big earthquake,” the Bishop asked.

The engineer replied, “No.”

So the decision not to repair the old church was clear and there was little disagreement. St. Francis de Sales church was built in 1891 and remodeled for use as a cathedral seventy years later. It was a lovely but very dated parish church that was dark, small and blocks from important transit arteries.  Parking was very limited. The City of Oakland designated it as a landmark which made it difficult to obtain a demolition permit.  In fact as a condition for the permit, they required that property be put up for sale on the off chance that another faith community might be willing to buy and rebuild it. None did.

Other stories of what has happened to cathedrals around the world can be found at the following links.

In Port-Au-Prince, Haiti their iconic cathedral was severely damaged by the earthquake in Jan 2010. A new Episcopal Cathedral is being built, (the original cathedral dated from 1861), with help from the Episcopal church in the USA. They are looking to incorporate the remains of the damaged cathedral within a new complex

In L’Aquila, Italy, the San Massimo Cathedral was damaged in the 2009 quake, It is being partially deconstructed. The repair bill in 2009 was estimated at $50M euros (NZ$76M)

 

 


 

 

 


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