Photo by John Sonderman

More than 18 months after an earthquake rattled the East Coast, work to repair the event’s most famous damage is finally underway. Earlier this week, workers began erecting scaffolding around the Washington Monument that will eventually envelop the 555-foot-tall obelisk for at least a year as its masonry is fixed.

The monument, which has been closed since August 23, 2011, when a 5.8-magnitude temblor rumbled out of Mineral, Va., is expected to remain shut to the public through well into 2014 as crews make repairs. The earthquake left the monument with stresses and cracks throughout its entire structure.

Framingham, Mass.-based Perini Management Services, Inc. was awarded a $9.6 million contract last September to install the scaffolding and fix up the monument. The total cost of restoring the Washington Monument expected to be $15 million, half of which is being donated by the Carlyle Group founder and philanthropist David E. Rubenstein.

The scaffolding itself is estimated to take at least four months to construct, though throughout the entire repair process, crews might frequently find themselves having to interrupt their work when President Obama moves to and from the White House.