MAYPORT, Fla. -- Mayport Road will be anything but quiet Monday as an active shooter drill gets underway at noon and lasts for four hours at Navy Exchange Mayport. It's part of a nation-wide effort by all Navy installments to conduct new drills and training exercises from Feb. 1 to Feb. 12.
Kings Bay and Naval Air Station Jax will conduct separate drills this week.
Bill Austin with Naval Station Mayport, says he wanted to spread the word about their Monday drill so the public would know it's not a real threat.
They hold active shooter drills regularly, but Monday's drill differs from the rest of their exercised because it was off base.
Jamie Green is overseeing the drill and says they've never held an exercise of this magnitude.
Green says two men "pretending to be the bad guys" will fire two shots (blanks) outside of NEX and then go inside the store and fire shots. That's when other agencies, like JSO, FBI and NCIS, will get involved.
A Life Flight helicopter and TraumaOne helicopter will land in the parking lot of a nearby Catholic Church. Fire trucks, police cars and military vehicles will swarm the area as part of the drill.
The drill is not a response to a legitimate threat, but only an "anti-terrorism" exercise, which they are calling "Solid Curtain-Citadel Shield 2016".
In a press release, Austin describes it as an "annual anti-terrorism force protection (ATFP) exercise" designed to train security forces to handle various threats that have become all too real lately.
"These exercises enable base leadership to assess Navy and civilian law enforcement's response to attacks both on installations and at potential off-installation targets," said Austin. "Exercise coordinators have taken measures to minimize disruptions to normal base operations, but there may be times when the exercise causes increased traffic around bases or delays in base access. Residents near bases may also see increased security activity associated with the exercise."