Watercraft, including a ferry, and helicopters will be visible over Puget Sound on Wednesday during an emergency exercise involving several law enforcement agencies.
Don’t be surprised if Puget Sound looks like the set of a “Die Hard” movie Wednesday.
Several law enforcement and emergency agencies, including Seattle police, King County Sheriff’s Office, Washington State Patrol, FBI, Coast Guard, U.S. Customs and Border Protections and King County Medic One, will be performing an active shooter and hostage drill in Elliott Bay.
The drill will take place between Harbor Island and Discovery Park from 4 to 11 p.m., and will include two helicopters and possibly an out-of-service ferry or a container ship, as well as smaller Coast Guard and State Patrol boats.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Jason Houcksaid multiagency drills are staged roughly every year.
Most Read Local Stories
“When we can get all these entities together … it’s when the stars align,” he said.
Houck said the sheriff’s SWAT team and marine units train for various scenarios throughout the year, but not on this scale.
Pier 5 on Harbor Island will be closed to the public during the drill, Houck said. Those in the area can expect to see people rappelling out of low-level helicopters and several boats pulling up to the ferry.