I have known coasties since grad school-more than 30 years ago. My opinion of them as people started out well (two were in school with me) has been uniformly going up the entire time. A hard-working (very!) friendly and generally all-around nice bunch of people. Their service and they are the greatest.
And yes, I do live in Katrinaland. The CG is the complete opposite of FEMA. When we needed help bad, the Coast Guard was front and center, the National Guard and Marines came in after a couple of days, FEMA came along later to help pick up the trash.