Photo by John J Young
If you were hoping to visit the Washington Monument this weekend, it’s time to make other plans. In fact, visitors won’t be able to enter the District’s tallest building for at least 10 more days, according to the National Park Service.
During this time, elevator technicians will “perform a thorough evaluation of the elevator in order to understand the reasons for the recent failures,” according NPS spokesperson Michael Litterst. Officials will use this information to help in the design of a new elevator control system, which is currently underway. This is the second summer of frequent closures due to elevator-related issues.
On Wednesday, a service interruption caused the Monument’s beleaguered elevator to stop between the 500’ and 490’ levels, Litterst said at the time. It was caused by a compensating cable that “broke loose from the car,” Litterst said. “The compensating cable is connected to the bottom of the car and the bottom of the counterweight and helps control the car while it is in motion by compensating for the differing weight of cable between the hoist and cab,” Litterst continued in a statement. He added that the cable repair is unrelated to power issues that prompted closures last weekend.
When the elevator stopped, one NPS employee was on board and was extricated safely. Meanwhile, 84 people had to walk down the monument steps “without incident,” Litterst said.
This week’s malfunction came less than a month after NPS repaired the elevator following a mechanical failure. On July 28, Litterst announced that technicians “replaced two sheave bearings, including both the one that failed and a second that was originally installed at the same time as the first.”
As NPS continuously pushed the monument’s reopening to later this week, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton tweeted yesterday that the public needs an explanation, and she would be speaking with park service officials. In a past criticism, Norton expressed concern that the breakdowns are causing damage to visitors as well as the D.C. economy. “The elevator shutdowns must now be classified as chronic, and must become a top priority for the National Park Service,” she said.
For the next 10 days, technicians will work on inspecting and cleaning the hoistway, checking “the integrity of the circuit breakers,” inspecting fans on top of the elevator car, and cleaning and lighting of the stairwell, according to NPS.
