Beyond the Towers: How Maui Is Rethinking Ocean Safety

Interview with Zack Edlao, Maui Ocean Safety

Maui has 120 miles of coastline, but only 12 lifeguard towers serving nine beaches. So what happens when people head into the ocean beyond a lifeguard's reach?

In this Deep Dive conversation, Maui Ocean Safety Chief Zack Edlao takes us behind the scenes of that challenge. He shares what it takes to protect residents and visitors in an environment that can change in seconds, from unguarded beaches and powerful rip currents to changing ocean conditions, limited coverage, and the need to reach people with safety information before they ever enter the water.

Edlao talks about the role of education, community relationships, rescue watercraft, youth programs, and interagency training in preventing emergencies before they happen. The conversation also explores the proposed Black Rock lifeguard tower and the broader effort to strengthen ocean safety through collaboration among Hawaii’s county ocean-safety teams, fire, police, EMS, emergency management, the Coast Guard, DLNR, community organizations and local residents.

The conversation also looks beyond Maui. Edlao discusses his upcoming visit to Okinawa to work with Taishi Otono, continuing the exchange of ideas and experience that can help strengthen ocean safety through learning across communities and regions.

At its heart, this is a conversation about kuleana, the shared responsibility to understand the ocean, look out for one another, and help create safer shorelines across Hawaii. Ocean safety doesn't begin when the rescue starts. It begins before anyone gets in the water.

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Beyond Swim Lessons: Building Lifelong Water Safety

What does it really mean for a child to be safe around water?

Chris Harkness, President of SafeSplash Swim School, talks about why learning to swim is only part of the answer. He explains the Safer Swimmer Promise, the self-rescue skills children should develop, and why becoming a capable swimmer takes time, repetition, and consistent practice. For many children, that process can take eight to twelve months rather than a few weeks of lessons.

The conversation looks at how we define water competency and whether children are learning skills they can actually use if they unexpectedly find themselves in trouble. Harkness discusses the importance of teaching children how to respond independently in the water while recognizing that no level of swimming ability makes a child drown-proof.

Swim lessons are also only one layer of protection. Active adult supervision, barriers around pools, CPR, emergency planning, and knowing how to respond when something goes wrong all play a role in preventing drowning and improving outcomes.

A key part of the discussion focuses on what happens when swimmers leave the pool. Oceans, lakes, and rivers introduce waves, currents, changing depths, cold water, and other conditions that cannot be fully recreated in a controlled swimming environment. Harkness discusses this gap and the possibility of bringing more open-water preparation into SafeSplash programming.

The interview also explores access. Scholarships, community partnerships, and other approaches can help make swimming instruction available to more families. But learning the skills is only the beginning. How well do children retain those skills months or years later, and how often do they need to practice to remain competent?

The bigger question is not simply whether a child can swim. It is how we build a system that gives children the skills, judgment, experience, and layers of protection they need to be safer around water throughout their lives.

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Beyond the Plan: Turning Water Safety Into Action

Drowning prevention does not begin with a swimming pool. It begins with knowledge, local leadership, and the willingness to use the resources a community already has.

Nathalie Martin discusses how her work in aquatics, research, humanitarian settings, and drowning prevention led to the creation of the Swim Global Project, a network designed to connect people across a water safety field that can often be fragmented. By bringing together swim school owners, researchers, public health professionals, operators, and other practitioners, Swim Global helps share knowledge, strengthen collaboration, and identify practical approaches to prevention.

Drawing on work in Bimini and Venezuela, Martin explains why effective water safety efforts must be built with communities rather than simply brought into them. In Bimini and other Caribbean communities, fear of the water, generational trauma, and long standing misinformation can influence swimming ability and attitudes toward the ocean. Sustainable change depends on community trust, local leadership, and building the capacity of people who will remain after outside experts leave.

Martin also emphasizes that water safety education does not have to wait for access to a pool. Important lessons about hazards, supervision, rescue, decision making, and safe behavior can begin on land. Practical prevention means starting with what a community already has, using evidence and expertise where needed, and avoiding the assumption that every solution must be built from scratch.

The conversation ultimately moves beyond creating water safety plans to the harder question of implementation. Plans are important, but their value comes from whether they lead to education, stronger local capacity, measurable action, and prevention in the real world.

“Water safety plans should not simply sit on a shelf; they should become a pathway for action.”

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