A dozen or so times most days around Las Vegas, I hear a siren. Or rather, sirens, since there often are multiple vehicles simultaneously emitting the grating sound. When I have no line of sight, like when I’m at home, I can’t tell if the faint-louder-faint pattern comes from police cars or firetrucks or ambulances or some combination thereof.
Even in the middle of the night, when there is far less traffic to warn and flashing lights presumably could do the trick, I hear (from bed) sirens demanding the right-of-way. Often every couple hours.
Still New to Las Vegas, I have never lived in a place with more frequent emergency response activity. That includes Albuquerque, my home for 12 years, where I lived within a mile of four hospitals with emergency rooms and local police led the nation in SWAT team incidents ending in a fatal shooting. And New York City and Seattle, where I resided within a few hundred yards of busy fire houses.
In Las Vegas the wailing tones are an ever-present–and unsettling–background theme to local life. Something bad is going down. Seemingly, nearly all the time. Continue reading
