High winds suspended inspections of the Washington Monument on Tuesday afternoon, just as workers entered the home stretch of their survey.
Members of the Difficult Access team from architechtural firm WJE have been rappelling down the monument since last week to check for further damage caused by the August earthquake.
The National Park Service said inspections on the monument's south and east walls were completed Tuesday before it got too windy. As part of standard safety precautions, and presumably to avoid a repeat of what happened to climber Erik Sohn on Friday, team members lowered themselves to the ground when gusts started to pick up.
The team has about 300 feet on both the north and west walls left to inspect. The entire survey operation is expected to wrap up on Wednesday, weather permitting.
