October 5, 2011
By Mary Frances Schjonberg

Washington National Cathedral announced Oct. 4 that the building, closed since it was damaged by an earthquake in August, will reopen Nov. 12 with the ordination and consecration of the Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde as the ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.

The reopening will include a week of events providing the cathedral with the opportunity to welcome back and thank the community for its support during the weeks since the quake, according to a press release.

The cathedral confirmed Oct. 4 that total restoration costs would be in the tens of millions of dollars. The cathedral hopes to continue an aggressive fundraising effort to bring in at least $15 million to offset the costs of the early stabilization and restoration work, and $10 million to help support its operations through the end of 2012, according to cathedral spokesman Richard Weinberg.

The latter number, Weinberg told Episcopal News Service, is in the ballpark of what the cathedral must raise each fiscal year to fund its operations. The current annual budget is about $14.8 million for the fiscal year that began July 1, he said.

The cathedral does not yet have a line-by-line budget for the complete restoration work, according to Weinberg.

"The work will be ongoing for years to come," he said, acknowledging that cathedral head stone mason Joe Alonso has estimated it could take up to a decade. "We just don't have a definitive timeline yet."

An unusual magnitude-5.8 earthquake that struck in central Virginia during the early afternoon Aug. 23 significantly damaged the cathedral's "Gloria in Excelsis" central tower. The cathedral is 84 miles to the northeast of the epicenter. The cathedral has been closed since.

Three of four pinnacles (corner spires) on the central tower lost their "finials" (capstones shaped like fleurs-de-lis) and there is more significant damage to two of the pinnacles, according to an earlier cathedral press release. Similar decorative elements such as statues on the cathedral's exterior also appeared to be damaged. Cracks appeared in the flying buttresses around the apse at the cathedral's east end, the first portion of the building to be constructed, but the buttresses supporting the central tower seem to be sound, according to the release.

The building suffered further damage one week after the quake from Hurricane Irene, whose high winds caused loose masonry to fall from the building and further displaced some of the pinnacles. On Sept. 7, a 500-foot crane involved in the stabilization work at the cathedral collapsed and fell on Herb Cottage, which housed the gift shop.

The long delay in reopening the cathedral after the quake was due to the need to stabilize damaged portions of the building, the release said. A safety perimeter remains in place during stabilization work involving a 550-ton-capacity construction crane, with which workers are in the process of placing numerous steel beams weighing a total of 70 tons in the central tower. Scaffolding is being constructed atop the beams to gain access to and then safely remove the damaged central tower's pinnacles.

The most important task, Weinberg said, is to gain access to the central and western towers with cranes so that workers can remove broken elements, many of which are still precariously balanced. The work needs to be done before the cathedral reopens and Weinberg said choosing Budde's consecration as the opening date is meant to give workers "more than enough time" to complete that work prudently and efficiently.

Still, "the interior of the building is ready to go," he said. Nets have been installed under the ceiling in anticipation of the time when workers will replace mortar that fell from the ceiling to the nave floor during the quake.

The quake caused damage throughout the Washington D.C. area. Damage to the Washington Monument is currently being assessed by a team of architects and engineers who are using ropes to rappel across and down the 555-foot structure. Weinberg said that team will do similar work at the cathedral when they are finished at the monument.

"This has been a difficult time for the cathedral, made easier by the support of so many in the Washington community as well as by supporters across the nation," Washington Bishop John Chane said in the release. "While we are proud of our ability to continue our historic mission under trying circumstances, we look forward to returning to our home – and welcoming those seeking a spiritual refuge to join us. Reopening is only the first step down a long path toward restoring the cathedral to its previous state. We will reach the end of that path only through the support of this community and people across the nation."

Chane, whom Budde is to succeed, became interim dean of the cathedral when the Very Rev. Samuel T Lloyd III left Sept. 18 in a previously announced return to Trinity Church, Copley Square, in Boston as priest-in-charge.

In May, Lloyd had told Episcopal News Service that the cathedral's then-new strategic plan represents a shift in focus and emphasis at the cathedral. For the first nearly 90 years of its life, the cathedral's plans centered around actually completing the building that would fulfill its founders' intent that it serve as a church to the United States, a house of prayer for all and the seat of the Diocese of Washington.

After the building was deemed complete in October 1990, there were what the new plan calls a "number of efforts" to describe more effectively the cathedral's mission or to reassess and articulate that mission and ministry.

Since the Aug. 23 earthquake worship services and cathedral events were moved to alternate sites in the area. The cathedral normally receives approximately 35,000 worshipers and visitors every month, according to the release.

"The cathedral has been entrusted to us as an important resource and national treasure to serve as the spiritual home for the nation," the Rev. Dr. James P. Wind, chair of the cathedral's governing board (the cathedral chapter) said in the release. "We take that trust very seriously and will do everything necessary to restore the building to the condition our national community of supporters has come to expect. We hope to engage people from across the country – drawn from every sector of society – not just in our effort to restore the physical structure but also in our role to be a sacred place that welcomes the country to commemorate, pray and mourn."

The cathedral's central tower, the highest point in Washington D.C., was completed in the 1960s and restored in the 1990s after repeatedly sustaining lightning damage. The fallen finials were placed at the end of the restoration.

Constructed in 14th-century English "perpendicular" Gothic style, Washington National Cathedral was constructed between 1907 and 1990 on Mount St. Alban, in the northwest part of the city.

Episcopal News Service
The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is an editor/reporter for the Episcopal News Service.