WHITE HOUSE

The historic earthquake caused a historic damage as it shook the nation's capital.While the mess around Washington, D.C. is being cleaned up on Wednesday, the Washington Monument in the heart of the city remained encircled within a black fence - due to a crack caused by Tuesday's 5.8-magnitude earthquake centered in Virginia.

Virtually the entire U.S. East Coast is on alert late Wednesday for a possible impact from Hurricane Irene, threatening to blaze a trail from eastern North Carolina northward to New England by Monday. By the time the storm departs the East Coast late Monday, it will likely have lashed with significant impacts from the Bahamas, where it is currently located, to eastern North Carolina, and up through the northeast U.S. -- possibly making a direct hit on Long Island, New York late Sunday.

Hurricane Irene continues to strengthen and make cut a path toward the eastern United States, with good odds of striking the New York area, and possibly making a direct hit on Long Island late Sunday. Irene is the first hurricane of the 2011 Atlantic season and threatening to be the first to strike the U.S. since Ike in 2008.

You can be rest assured that the earthquake-hit Washington Monument is not tilting. However, a closer look at the world's tallest obelisk brought National Park Service officials to discover some cracks near the top of the 555-foot monument.

A strong earthquake rattled the East Coast on Tuesday, sending tremors as far as Canada, damaging well-known buildings in the nation's capital and sending scared office workers into the streets.

Google Doodle honors Argentine Jorge Luis Borges, a Virginia earthquake rocks the entire East Coast, Hurricane Irene is upgraded to a Category 3 storm as it approached the United States, and more in today's Daily Scoop

U.S. East Coast was struck by an earthquake of magnitude 5.8 on Tuesday that some in New York and Washington briefly mistook for a terrorist attack.

The Washington Monument will be closed indefinitely to the public after engineers found cracks in the stones at the top of the structure.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has confirmed that a 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck central Virginia at 1:51 pm EDT. It is the strongest quake to hit the Virginia area since 1897.

A strong earthquake rattled the U.S. East Coast on Tuesday, sending tremors as far as Canada, shaking the nation's capital and scaring thousands of office workers who fled onto the streets.

In an unprecedented several hours, earthquake struck the East Coast, sending tremors from Virginia to Canada, just hours after a separate earthquake rattled Colorado.

Hours after a 5.8 magnitude earthquake shook the East Coast, the Washington, D.C. area was still experiencing aftershocks of considerable magnitude.

NYC workers did not hesitate to evacuate office buildings

A strong earthquake rattled the East Coast on Tuesday, sending tremors as far as Canada, shaking the nation's capital and scaring thousands of office workers who fled onto the streets.

Was the Washington Monument so vulnerable that the 5.9 magnitude earthquake in Virginia is tilting the world's tallest obelisk?

A magnitude 5.9 earthquake rocked the U.S. East Coast, sending vibrations and panics from as far south as North Carolina to as far north as Toronto.Buildings in downtown Washington, D.C. were rattled, causing parts of the Pentagon, White House and to evacuate.

Two nuclear reactors at the North Anna Station in Mineral, Virginia were stopped working, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said. The plant lost off-site power, but diesel generators are operating, a spokesman for the commission said.

The earthquake in Virginia that shook the east coast and the approaching Hurricane Irene storm remind us that mother nature is the most poweful force of all.

A 5.9-magnitude earthquake centered in Virginia rattled Washington DC and sent tremors all the way north to New York City and Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. The earthquake struck around 1:51 p.m. on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Here's where the 2011 Virginia Earthquake hit according to maps distributed by the U.S. Geographical Survey.

Right on the brink of Hurricane Irene, an earthquake hits the East Coast.