Thanks to our friends at WUSA9 we now know what happens when lightning strikes the Washington Monument!
WUSA9's SkyCam captured live footage of the Washington Monument being struck by a powerful bolt of lightning yesterday during the thunderstorm that illuminated DC.
Even though lightning strikes to the monument are fairly common because it essentially is a huge lightning rod in the middle of DC, it looks amazing in the skycam footage you can see below.
According to Atlas Obscura, the 555 foot-tall obelisk was hit by a lightning bolt in December 1884 that melted down about 3/8ths of an inch of the structure so at least that didn’t happen this time.
Photo Credit: Getty Images