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Washington, D.C.: Risks & Trends

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Same standard as every other page on this site: every figure below is independently sourced, and figures that vary across sources, or measure genuinely different things, are flagged as such rather than collapsed into one number that looks more precise than the underlying data actually supports.

The August 2011 Virginia earthquake

MetricFigure
Date August 23, 2011
Magnitude / epicenter M5.8, near Mineral, VA, ~83 miles from D.C.
Washington Monument cracks 150+, some deep enough to let daylight through
Washington Monument closure 32 months (Aug. 2011 - May 12, 2014)
Washington Monument repair cost $15 million ($7.5M federal funds, $7.5M matching donation)
National Cathedral damage estimate ~$34-38 million (sources vary; not covered by insurance)
National Cathedral restoration timeline Ongoing since 2011; full completion projected around 2029

A damage bill that isn't finished almost 15 years later

The National Cathedral’s own restoration page still projects final completion around 2029, eighteen years after the quake. Three of the four central-tower corner spires were severely damaged, along with cracked flying buttresses and destroyed masonry, none of it covered by ordinary insurance, since earthquake damage isn’t a standard policy inclusion. A single quake most of the region felt as a strong jolt, not a catastrophe, still produced a repair timeline measured in decades.

The June 2012 derecho

MetricFigure
Date June 29, 2012 (evening)
Peak wind gusts 87+ mph in the Baltimore-Washington corridor
D.C. customers without power ~68,000 (district-proper figure; regional total across DC-MD-VA exceeded 1 million)
Restoration timeline 80-85% restored regionally by the following Tuesday; up to 8-10 days in worst-hit spots
Heat wave that followed Daily high at or above 95°F for over a week; peaked at 105°F on July 7, 2012
Confirmed D.C. death 1 (electrocution while checking storm damage from a fallen tree)
Regional damage estimate ~$2.9 billion (multi-state total, no separate D.C.-only figure available)

Two different numbers for 'how many lost power,' and why

Sources describing this storm cite very different outage numbers because they’re describing different areas: roughly 68,000 customers in the District of Columbia itself, versus regional reporting of “more than a million” across the combined DC-Maryland-Virginia metro area. Both are accurate; they’re just answering a different question about scope. The district’s own retail customer base is small relative to its suburbs, so a D.C.-only figure will always look modest next to a metro-wide one.

Sources