The National Park Service has released a video that shows how the top of the Washington Monument looked from the inside during the August 23 earthquake. Obviously, there was a lot of shaking and people running around.
The National Park Service says that the engineers have established that the building is structurally sound. Now they are going to send the engineers to inspect the exterior of the monument. They will rappel down to inspect its surface looking for any cracks. According to Bob Vogel, superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks, “the heaviest damage appears to be concentrated at the very top of the monument, in what is called the pyramidion, where large cracks of up to 1 1/4 inch wide developed through stone and mortar joints.” [National Park Service via CNN]