Update: December 6, 2014, 11:00HRS PHT: www.pagasa.dost.gov.ph now redirects to kidlat.pagasa.dost.gov.ph. Maybe the article below helped give the administrators an idea how to put a workaround or someone finally was given the time to implement it. Nevertheless, this should have been done 3 days ago.
By: Jerome Auza
Where is PAGASA when you need it most?
Our well criticized weather agency PAGASA added another reason for Filipinos to criticize the underfunded and undermanned agency. It main website has been down for the past few days when many netizens are searching for information about typhoon Ruby. It probably has overworked personnel, especially in times when a major storm is approaching the country and thus couldn’t take time to repair their website.
I have been providing updates on www.boholnewsdaily.com about the storm track forecast of typhoon Ruby (HAGUPIT) and sadly, it was easier to get information from the Japan Meteorological Agency and the Guam Weather Forecast Office rather than from our own weather agency.
We need someone good at MySQL in this country to help PAGASA.
It would be such a bummer if the PAGASA website will still be down and the typhoon is bearing down on the Philippines.
PAGASA website still down less than 24 hours from the expected landfall of typhoon Ruby.
While it is true that the PAGASA website has a mirror site on kidlat.pagasa.dost.gov.ph, the average Internet user would never know about it since most of the search engine results point to the main website www.pagasa.dost.gov.ph. As a web site hosting service provider, I know how simple it is to redirect hits to the main website to the mirror site in case the main website fails. But PAGASA never did that. They briefly showed an error page with the correct links after being down for 24 hours last Thursday but that page is gone late Friday afternoon.
The website was intermittent prior to Thursday.
Fortunately PAGASA personnel has a Facebook page where they are currently posting typhoon Ruby updates as well as other weather updates around the country. I am not sure though if it is official. It probably is.
PAGASA should really put the proper resources to keep its website alive especially during times when people would like to know more information about upcoming severe weather. Or maybe the agency’s budget from the General Appropriations Act is only a miniscule amount compared to what is being primed for use during the coming election campaign. If that’s the case, there’s probably little the personnel can do.
To help keep up with huge data traffic, PAGASA can invite volunteers to mirror its content so that in case the main site is out, there are still many mirror sites that can continue providing information to the public.
PAGASA’s website is a very efficient means of disseminating information to the public. But it is useless when it is down and doesn’t redirect users to the mirror site.
