On August 23, an earthquake hit the Mid-Atlantic region. It was fairly big by East Coast standards, and it caused moderate damage to the Washington Monument. The Monument is basically just a bunch of blocks stacked on top of one another, reaching 555 feet high, and is not really designed to withstand earthquakes. It has been closed since the earthquake for safety reasons and a perimeter around the base is now fenced off.
The National Park Service is hoping to re-open the monument one day, but first it must inspect each and every block and joint on the exterior. The mortar between the stone blocks is relatively soft compared to the blocks themselves and much of the mortar between the joints fell out during the quake. With winter coming, the worry is that water will get into the damaged joints, freeze, and damage the blocks even more.
Enter the "difficult access team" from engineering firm Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates. These 4 engineers, hired by the NPS, are repelling down each face of the monument, cataloging the damage and doing emergency weatherization.
I just had to take a walk over there on my lunch hour and snap some pictures. There were around 100 people doing the same thing.
We need to zoom out a little for some perspective.
Here you can see one of the engineers actually working on the joint under a broken marble block.
