Re:Why do we need it? (Score 3, Interesting)

From my experience, people often use this service to answer the question "what the heck are all those sirens???" For this purpose, a real time service is essential. In addition, it is a good public service to let the population know if that volley of emergency vehicles that careened past their homes are getting a cat out of a tree or chasing down an axe wielding maniac.

The data isn't normalized so response dispatchments to the same place can be peppered throuh the data. Mapping the data greatly simplifies understanding what's going on.

That said, the data presented was minimal, the listings we're linked into full police reports, but said "medic response", "automatic fire alarm", etc. Occasionally, one could find "haz mat spill cleanup" or "armed assult". The system also tells you if the incident is closed. Overall, a nice service to have to know what's going down in your neighborhood.

Anyway, making it inconvenient to access is a silly half retraction of the service.