Officials across the Washington region checked office buildings, national landmarks and other structures on Wednesday, one day after an earthquake rocked the area. The Washington Monument was shut down indefinitely after its defining pinnacle was found to be cracked, the Washington National Cathedral was determined to be too damaged to host dedication services for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, and the National Building Museum was closed pending further inspections, officials said. The quake caused its greatest damage near its epicenter in central Virginia and displaced some residents in the District’s suburbs. There were no known deaths or serious injuries from the 5.8-magnitude quake that started in central Virginia at 1:51 p.m. Tuesday and was felt as far north as Toronto and south to Atlanta.
“It was a rather eventful day yesterday,” D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray said Wednesday.
Gray said he will request authority from the D.C. Council to spend $10 million from the city’s emergency fund to make repairs to schools and other government buildings.
Dominion Virginia Power officials said there was no damage to a nuclear power station that sits 20 miles from the quake’s epicenter. The North Anna Power Station shut down automatically after the quake struck. Power officials said there was no release of radioactivity and no damage to the plant’s safety systems. Federal inspectors were examining the plant on Wednesday.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell visited Louisa County, where the quake was centered.
“The damage is more widespread and significant than the preliminary reports we had gotten yesterday,” McDonnell said, adding that there is little the state can do for the uninsured.
The earthquake was the strongest to hit the Washington region since 1897. Monuments and museums in D.C. were evacuated along with the Pentagon, the White House and the Capitol. Federal workers were sent home early, creating hours of delays on the region’s roadways as a tide of traffic flooded out of the District.
D.C. officials said coordination among jurisdictions had improved since a storm last winter left some drivers on the road for more than eight hours. They said they’ll review how events unfolded, but there’s not much more they can do to evacuate the city more smoothly without drivers’ help.
“If you don’t panic and stay in place, it will be great,” said D.C. Department of Transportation Director Terry Bellamy.
About 50 people in Prince George’s County were displaced from two buildings that were condemned, county officials said. In D.C., a family of five was put up in a hotel after their home was deemed too dangerous to live in, city officials said.
Among Washington’s many attractions, it seems the National Cathedral might be facing the worst damage. Three of the four spires in the central tower broke off and there is structural damage to the cathedral as well, a spokesman said. The damage is expected to cost millions of dollars to fix and ?– like most earthquake damage in the region — isn’t covered by insurance, the spokesman said.
Examiner staff writers Liz Essley and Ben Giles contributed to this report. Information from the Associated Press also was used in the story.
