Ocean Safety Lieutenant Chelsea Kahalepauole Bizik used to work in a nook between the restrooms at Kailua Beach Park as well as out of her truck. Now she gets an office in the new Kailua Operations Annex.
The 1,680-square-foot Kailua Operations Annex has two offices, a bathroom, a kitchenette, a storage room and a garage for trucks and two jet skis on Kaneapu Place across from the Kailua Beach Boat Ramp. It’s home to two lieutenants and Rescue 6, a rescue watercraft team.
The Ocean Safety and Lifeguard Services Division, now the Honolulu Ocean Safety Department, created Rescue 6 in 2013, and Capt. J.R. Sloane, who leads operations between Maunalua Bay to Mōkapu Peninsula in Kāneʻohe, said that its impact was immediate in Kailua, Lanikai and the Windward coast.
“Rescue 6 is a legitimate and necessary rescue unit in which specially trained lifeguards who educate the public, make proactive, preventative actions to keep people from getting into dangerous, life threatening situations and then rescuing them and providing basic life support when they do,” Sloane said.
Rescue 2 and Rescue 6, the two rescue teams on the Windward coast, documented 35,686 interactions with beachgoers and rescued 134 people in 2025, according to Ocean Safety data. Kailua Beach is the fourth visited beach on Oʻahu, with more than 1.5 million visitors last year.
Chelsea Kahalepauole Bizik, one of the two lieutenants based out of the Kailua Operations Annex, told ASD that the annex improves teamwork between the rescue teams and the lieutenants, who serve as incident commanders for rescues.
“When we aren’t on calls we talk about situations that we had prior or how we could do things better, just fine tuning in that sense is cool to be in the same zone,” she said.
Kahalepauole Bizik said that the annex improves the team’s response time to incidents on the Windward coast. The jetski trailer is already connected to the truck, so when an incident does occur, it takes the team 30 seconds to 2 minutes to get the jet ski on the water at Kailua.
The garage gives the team space to maintain the jetskis impacted by saltwater and storage to restock first responder items like backup kits, oxygen units and lifeguard backboards for the tower guards. Kahalepauole Bizik previously stashed an extra lifeguard backboard on the top of her truck.
“It just feels like a long time coming and I’m honestly just blessed that I get to be apart of it,” she said.
Councilmember Esther Kiaʻāina celebrated the Kailua Operations Annex as an investment in capital infrastructure, lifeguards and the Windward community.
The project cost $3.3 million and was constructed by C C Engineering & Construction, Inc.
Ocean Safety Chief Kurt Lager said that generations of lifeguards have fought to make the Department of Ocean Safety what it is today.
“We never really got a lot of respect as the ocean safety division, now a department, and to see everyone here today, I think that respect is being shown,” Lager said on Wednesday.
Lager said that the annex reflects the city’s commitment to public safety and the direction of the department.
Mayor Rick Blangiardi called the annex an “extraordinary milestone” for the city and Honolulu Ocean Safety Department. It’s the first permanent building constructed exclusively for the department since the Territory of Hawaiʻi established a “Life-Saving Patrol” on Waikīkī Beach in 1917, and Blangiardi said that facility reflects the importance of the work of the Ocean Safety Department.
The annex might be the first Ocean Safety facility, but it’s not the last.
The City and County of Honolulu plans to build new substation in Waiʻanae and a First Responder Hub near Sharks Cove, according to the Ocean Safety Commission. The department is leasing a Cooke Street warehouse for rescue training and plans to relocate its headquarters into a Kakaʻako warehouse in 2027.
Haley Lehman can be reached at haley@alohastatedaily.com.
For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.
