Photo of the devastation.
Heh, everyone's a comedian... Still a few schools and federal buildings closed for repairs in the area. For all the idiotic posturing by the west coasters about the "little" earthquake, it was more significant than most would have imagined, even right after it happened. My building downtown was without power for 31 hours (the rocking during the earthquake separated the building electrical core from the street service). We ran on generator power for emergency operations. Most buildings had no or incidental damage (cracks in walls, pictures fallen from walls, etc...). Some fared much worse. The damage to the National Cathedral will be measured in millions of $$ since half of the flying buttresses are now cracked.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/08/what-really-happened-national-cathedral-quake/41644/http://www.nationalcathedral.org/galleries/quake/_DSC4602.jpgThis picture is typical of what was seen in DC (this is in Columbia Heights, right next to a Best Buy that will be closed indefinitely since its main water feed into the building burst and flooded the store) and in places like Alexandria, Richmond and Annapolis.
(http://www.americanwx.com/bb/uploads/monthly_08_2011/post-2071-0-90337800-1314205728.jpg)
A 5.8 magnitude quake here on the east coast is very different than one anywhere on the west coast. The ground shakes so much there that is stays in a perpetual "liquid" state and absorbs shocks relatively well. The bedrock here is so hard and quakes here are so infrequent that the ground is basically cemented together by limestone deposits over time and yields an effective transfer of energy over great distances. I’ve been in quakes on both coasts and this thing was no slouch.
