New Coast Guard Station to be Unveiled

A ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled Thursday to celebrate the opening of the new Coast Guard Station Oak Island operations building. Crews from Coast Guard Station Oak Island, located in Caswell Beach, N.C., will be opening their doors to a new station after their original station burned down Feb. 1, 2002, for unknown reasons. In the mean time, crews have been conducting operations for more than two years in two doublewide trailers while a new, state-of-the-art facility was constructed on familiar station ground. Since the fire, Station Oak Island has grown larger with the addition of a new 25-foot homeland security response boat and 10 more crewmembers. Attending the ceremony will be Chief of Staff, U.S. Coast Guard, Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, Commander, Fifth Coast Guard District, Rear Adm. Sally Brice-O'Hara and Mayor, Caswell Beach, N.C., Harry Simmons