🚀 go-pugleaf

>Do you have any knowledge of the existence of such a system? What of a
>similar service?

It's been proposed before.

>What, in your mind, are the possible advantages and downfalls of
>creating such a service?

The major downfall is that it depends on too much technology to get
tiny amounts of information.  Radio and TV work better if you need broadcast.

>Do you feel that if approached, the health and emergency services
>officials' would be interested in such a service? Why or why not?

This has been discussed in misc.emerg-services.
Computers are not as pervasive as TV, radio, or phones.  In the instances
where modems are required, systems get easily swamped.  The other systems
can also get swamped, but not as quickly as computers.  The best thing
which can happen is to keep computers (and people) from mindlessly dialing
into or in areas experiencing an emergency: freeing phone lines for critical
voice services.  At such time as computers becoming even more pervasive and
data of equal importance (say transmission of cardiac data), then authorities
will have to figure out some other system of handling phones.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
  Resident Cynic, Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers
  {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene
Second Favorite email message: Returned mail: Cannot send message for 3 days
A Ref: Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, vol. 1, G. Polya