xeus.xeus's Journal: National Hurricane Center RSS Lacks Advisory Full Text

I find it absurd and irresponsible that the National Hurricane Center fails to include full advisory text in its RSS feeds. Instead, like many RSS publishers, it places only a web link to the advisory text.

Useless, useless, and useless!

As a native and resident of New Orleans, a victim of Hurricane Katrina, and a concerned individual who watches Hurricane Dean and the gulf activity with growing intrepidation, for Heaven's sake NHC: provide the resources to individuals to remain informed. Provide the full text advisory in your use of RSS.

With this thoughtless omission, the NHC forces RSS subscribers to use not just an RSS reader, but also a web browser to attain the full advisories. If I had desired to use a web browser, I would have started with one in the first place. True, the NHC provides a text-only web site, but more seems at play here regarding RSS. Did not the architects of RSS aim to streamline and cut the potential fat from news distributions? Moreover, If a person lacks access to a web browser or the means or infrastructure to read web pages, does not the NHC render this RSS feed pointless? (Perhaps due to power outages, flood waters, or crippled phone lines, as we in the Gulf Coast experienced in the horrible days and weeks following Katrina. Phones became inoperable, and suddenly SMS text messages -- which could get through -- became quintessential.) Does it not, in fact, prohibit people from this critical information?

For example, tell me what the NHC expects people to gain from a feed, (feed://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index-at.xml), such as this:

        "Hurricane DEAN Public Advisory Number 22A Today, 01:02 PM Issued at 200 PM AST SAT AUG 18 2007 Read More..."

Anticipation? Foreshadowing? I get zilch-o out of it. That is, if you overlook my anger and frustration.

In its Techinical Q&A on the NHC RSS Feeds page, it reads:

        "We don't include the actual advisory text in the feeds at this time"

NHC, please explain. I can see no reason for this limitation. You do not provide entertainment blurbs like some sports or movie site. You provide highly critical safety news. You provide information that can, and has, made life-or-death differences. Hurricane advisories strike me as an optimal use case to take advantage of feeds like RSS.

National Hurricane Center, did you know that RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication? It does not stand for 'Read This Useless Header, Now Go Use Your Web Browser'. I strongly believe full advisory text in the National Hurricane Center's RSS feeds should seem a no-brainer.

You use RSS, NHC. But you use it wrong.

Andrew Grange Palmer, MS
New Orleans, Louisiana