Top 10 rescue videos from the US Coastguard, which celebrated its birthday by announcing it has saved 1,109,310 lives in its 217-year existence.
posted by dersins on Aug 5, 2007 - 7 comments

Coast Guard pulls over floating, propeller equipped '59 Buick driving to Miami - manned by Cuban refugees. "For four of the 11 people on board, it was not the first thwarted attempt to leave the communist island in a bizarrely converted vintage vehicle." (from ABC news) Last year, they tried to do the same thing in a converted '51 Chevy Truck: "The crew members of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter could not believe their eyes...Chugging along at a steady 13 kilometres per hour in the Straits of Florida was a bright-green 1951 Chevrolet truck...." (link to story, as reprinted in Free Republic, alas ) Sadly, the Coast Guard sunk the Buick - which looked a bit like a WW2 amphibious landing craft. Here's a picture, on the blog of a Christian Evangelical (scroll down for story) who argues that the refugees are worthy of a special exception to US immigration laws, for their pluck and innovative brilliance.
posted by troutfishing on Feb 7, 2004 - 25 comments

The National Park Service and US Coast Guard are dumping Lighthouses for free. The catch is you need to maintain it. What would you do with a Lighthouse?
posted by stbalbach on Jan 24, 2003 - 26 comments

Watch those Waterway in Florida says the U.S. Coast Guard. Possible terrorist threats include drawing or taking photographs of the shore, being near the shore for a long time, and under no circumstances would any law abiding citizen be doing something as daring and thoroughly terrorist-like as renting a boat.
posted by benjh on Aug 23, 2002 - 37 comments