Public Tours Resume At Washington Monument
COSTELLO: It survived an earthquake. Now after nearly three years and a multimillion dollar makeover later, the Washington Monument, that gigantic tribute to America's first president reopens at this hour. Let the fireworks begin. Erin McPike is on the National Mall. Good morning.</s>MCPIKE: Carol, good morning. The bulk of the damage was at the very top where that pyramid structure stops at the 450-foot mark. There are about 150 cracks up there. Those have all been repaired. That's where a bunch of debris fell. The national park service has took extra care in this repair process that has generally been on time and on budget despite our very harsh winter.</s>MCPIKE (voice-over): For three years crews have been restoring the Washington Monument to its original glory. Hard work, stone by stone that's come to a long awaited end. Now that the 555-foot monument reopens to the public.</s>BOB VOGEL, SUPERINTENDENT, NATIONAL MALL AND MEMORIAL PLAZE: One of the most spectacular views in America and certainly the best view in Washington, D.C. and we're very excited to allow visitors back up at this level.</s>MCPIKE: It's been closed since August 23rd, 2011, when a 5.8 magnitude earthquake shook the marble and granite sending debris flying.</s>SGT. DAVID SCHLOSSER: We had some initial reports that there may have been some mortar and stones that had come loose.</s>MCPIKE: The large crack pictured in this video caused rain to pour inside and down the stairs.</s>UNIDENTIFIELD MALE: Had to do a careful analysis of over 20,000 stones at the monument before we could figure out exactly what we needed to do to repair it. The first couple of weeks we had people who were repelling down and they were doing photo documentation and analysis of each of the stones to determine the significance of the damage.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The worst damage was at the top.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Many people who have lived here for many years suddenly have a renewed interest in going to the top of the Washington Monument. We're very excited. That's what we're here for is to have this site open to the public.</s>MCPIKE: The $15 million restoration project for a while lit up Washington skyline until the most soaring site in the nation's capital was back to the way it should be.</s>MCPIKE: And Carol, you know that we don't take advantage of all our many tourist attractions here unless of course we have family in town. I will tell you that Bob Vogel of the national park service told me that getting up into the Washington monument has become the hottest ticket in town when the website reopened to issue tickets he said 16,000 tickets went in 15 minutes. But also this morning we have seen people line up at that office to get tickets for tours today. There are still tickets available today. I waited in that line this morning. Look what I have. Two tickets. I lived here for almost 13 years and I'm going to go up at 3:30 this afternoon. Finally after all of this time.</s>COSTELLO: Who are you taking with you? Who is the lucky person?</s>MCPIKE: CNN producer, extraordinaire, Eric F is coming with me and he'll talk about it today on "</s>THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER." COSTELLO: That was wonderful. Erin McPike reporting live. > Still to come, rallying point for Democrats and now some key Republicans are breaking away from their party. Up next, why Democrats are not the only ones now calling for an increase to the federal minimum wage.