A window washer called 911 around 4:45 p.m. Friday, pleading for help after gusty winds turned a routine job on the side of a downtown Bellevue skyscraper into a dangerous situation. The call came from 555 108th Ave. NE, sending Bellevue Fire crews racing to the 555 Tower, a 42-story building that stands roughly 600 feet tall.
According to KOMO News, Bellevue fire crews worked to rescue two window washers stranded near the 39th floor of the building, where they had been working on scaffolding when conditions deteriorated. A separate alert from Citizen described an unconfirmed report of a washer stuck on the 32nd floor of the same address — a discrepancy in the reported floor that has not been resolved by either source.
Rope Technicians Prepare a Risky Descent
Rope rescue technicians prepared to descend three floors from the roof to reach the stranded workers, per the station's report. The plan called for crews to attach the window washers to safety ropes, remove them from the scaffolding, and lower them nearly 600 feet to the ground below — a maneuver that underscores just how high up the pair had been working when the wind picked up.
Bellevue police launched a drone to assist with the rescue effort and closed 108th Avenue Northeast to traffic at Northeast Eighth Street as crews worked the scene, the same account notes. No injuries were reported among the window washers as the operation got underway Friday afternoon. The outlet's page was last updated at 6:06 p.m. that evening, and the final outcome of the rescue had not been confirmed as of that update.
Drones Becoming a Routine Tool for Bellevue Responders
The drone deployment fits into a broader shift in how Bellevue first responders operate. The City of Bellevue announced in September that it was launching a one-year drone-as-first-responder pilot program this fall, allowing patrol officers to quickly send unmanned aerial systems to incident locations as part of a police response or at another agency's request.
High-rise window washer emergencies are not unique to Bellevue. Just last month, two window washers were rescued after their platform malfunctioned at a skyscraper in downtown Montreal, according to CTV News. Bellevue itself has faced a similar scare before: in March 2017, firefighters rescued a window washer stranded on the side of a downtown building at the Ashton Apartments after the worker's rope broke, with Patch reporting that no one was injured in that incident.
