WASHINGTON (WUSA9) -- It took 83 years to build the National Cathedral and just an instant to shake its foundations and snap its spires.
Nearly four years after an earthquake caused millions of dollars in damage, the Cathedral announced that it has finished Phase One of repairs. But there's a whole lot of work still to come.
The Cathedral took reporters and photographers across catwalks and up ladders to a scaffold hanging by a handful of steel wire from the ceiling -- just to show off the repair work.
It's taken $10 million just to replace the mortar, the damaged interior stones, and to pin the flying buttresses back onto the outside of the Cathedral.
The inside is finished, the protective nets have already come down, and the scaffolding will go soon.
On this Ash Wednesday, parishioners have faith that they'll find the $22 million they need to finish the work outside.
The exterior scaffolding went up shortly after the earthquake -- but the Cathedral says it cannot start the rest of the work outside until it raises the money.
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