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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose 10:01, 3 August 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Hurricane Elena

Hurricane Elena (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Juliancolton (talk) 20:15, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hurricane Elena was a perfect storm of sorts. Nearly every aspect of its life was an anomaly, from its inexplicable strengthening *over* the island of Cuba to its multiple unpredicted shifts in direction that created the largest game of cat-and-mouse in U.S. history, as well as the largest peacetime evacuation. And to top it off, it struck on Labor Day. A forecasting, political, and disaster management nightmare, the storm continues to fascinate researchers and weather enthusiasts, and has been one of my favorite events to write about. I believe this article is by far the more comprehensive and engaging account of the storm in existence, and with the help of multiple other users who allowed me to fine-tune the text and sources, I'm confident this represents some of the project's best work. Thanks for looking! Juliancolton (talk) 20:15, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Welcome back to FAC!
  • "late August and early September 1985": I'm no authority on linking, but that looks like an EGG problem to me. What do you think of this? "during the 1985 Atlantic hurricane season, in late August and early September."
  • "after traveling lengthwise across the island with no major effects": As a layman, I'm not sure what "effects" would mean, other than "damage".
  • "up to twice": There's nothing logically wrong with that phrase ... I just don't see it much, perhaps because people are expecting something more dramatic than "twice" after "up to". Maybe: ", in some cases twice in a matter of days"
  • "Despite the highly dynamic situation at hand,": I'd delete this, I think you've made that clear already.
  • "swept through communities and mobile home parks well away from the coast": Some readers may need help understanding why you put it this way ... maybe (if accurate): "caused extensive damage in communities well away from the coast, particularly in mobile home parks" [more coming] - Dank (push to talk) 22:02, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "due to the storm's effects.": delete or reword. In general, WP:Checklist#because may be helpful.
  • "0000 UTC": WP:MOSTIME says to use a colon (and examples with UTC follow later) ... thoughts?
  • "situated": FAC reviewers often object to this word, since it's often used superfluously. Probably best to lose it.
  • "turned toward the east": Any objection to "turned east"?
  • "center rapidly filled": Clear enough to me, but I'm wondering if some readers need "with clouds"
  • "Mississippi and Louisiana and despite the weakening": comma needed
  • "thunderstorm activity which spawned heavy rains": "heavy thunderstorms"
  • "degenerating a remnant low": degenerating to a remnant low-pressure system, maybe
  • I made it down to Hurricane_Elena#Preparations. - Dank (push to talk) 23:15, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

A former user, User:Hurricanefan25, who has since been blocked from Wikipedia for various reasons I will not discuss, read over Hurricane Elena and made some comments that will be useful to the FAC. Per request, I will be posting those comments below. Since he is blocked, he will not be able to respond to the fixes himself. Below are his comments. I would also like to note that although I am a participant in the WikiCup, these are not comments that were initially made by me, and thus I do not take credit for these comments. TheAustinMan(Talk·Works) 16:59, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware that there's a lot of comments (mainly due to the fact that there were 51 paragraphs, 10 alone in Florida!), but most of these are extremely minor (and in many cases, influenced by my personal opinion) and can be fixed easily. There's no need to leave replies to all of these; objections would be enough. And yes, JC, I feel that Elena is certainly long enough. It took forever to write this up. :/

Lede
  • Capitalization of "weekend" in "Labor Day Weekend" is unnecessary.
  • "with no major effects" → "little impact"?
  • "Despite predictions for Elena" → "Despite predictions that the hurricane/it/&c" or something similar
  • "The hurricane's unpredictable shifts in direction created what was called the largest peacetime evacuation" – "called the largest peacetime evacuation" implies that that an individual or organization stated that word-for-word; if that's the case, quotation marks are necessary; if it isn't, however, then "considered" might be a more appropriate word here.
  • "Evacuations occurred in sequence to follow the storm's forecast positions" – "in sequence" is confusing
  • "residents and tourists along portions of the Gulf Coast were forced to leave up to twice" – clarify; I can understand the meaning of this, but at first glance, "leave up to twice" left me befuddled
  • "Elena's slow movement off western Florida" → "off of"
  • "especially in cases of old or inadequate construction" → "especially to those with old or inadequate construction"
  • "well away from the coast" → "well inland"
  • "destroying their reefs" – if the reefs are home to these oysters, this is fine, but if that isn't the case, switch to "it" – this statement is currently describing the oysters, not the bay
  • "The rest of the state's coast also sustained considerable damage, and the inland pecan and soybean crops were severely diminished in Alabama and Mississippi." – was the harvest "diminished," or was there severe damage to the crops?
    They don't seem mutually exclusive... Juliancolton (talk) 02:51, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Over 13,000 homes were damaged in Mississippi, and 200 were completely destroyed." – personally, I'd use "and of those"
    It's hard, because the 13k is a rough number, but the 200 are additional to the 13k+. Juliancolton (talk) 02:51, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "two in Texas due to rip current drownings" → "drownings in rip currents"
Meteorological history
  • "At 0000 UTC on August 28, while situated over the Windward Passage, the disturbance developed into a tropical depression" – slightly awkward wording; rearrange the sentence
  • "newly designated" – hyphen is necessary
    I've always been told otherwise, actually. Juliancolton (talk) 02:51, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "However, its central barometric pressure continued to deepen" – "Despite that" might be more appropriate in this case
  • "midday on August 28" → "at noon," and remove the preceding comma
  • "striking between New Orleans, Louisiana, and Biloxi, Mississippi, area" → "stricking (with)in an area between New Orleans, Louisiana, and Biloxi, Mississippi"
  • "slow drastically in forward speed" – "forward speed" seems unnecessary; it's unlikely readers would believe the wind speed would be decreasing
    Eh, I've had problems with readers confusing that before, unfortunately :/ Juliancolton (talk) 02:51, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "moved very quickly" → "moved rapidly"
  • "After the passage of the upper-level system early on August 31, however, steering currents became extremely weak" → "However, after the passage of the upper-level system early on August 31, steering currents became extremely weak"
  • "Elena slowed to quasi-stationary movement in the extreme northeastern Gulf of Mexico" → "became nearly stationary"
  • "At its closest" – approach?
  • "hurricane's first forecast destination range" – "destination range" sounds a bit strange...
    Yeah, it's not ideal, but I really can't think of any other way to word it. Thoughts from anybody? Juliancolton (talk) 02:51, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "its center rapidly filled" – meaning? :S
  • "despite the weakening" → "despite its weakening"
  • "Elena persisted for several days before degenerating" – parallel structure; degenerating → "it degenerated"
Preparations
  • "in conjunction with its arrival in popular tourist destinations" → "arrival at popular tourist destinations"
  • "Evacuations and the hoisting of weather advisories" – "hoisting" makes me think of flags
  • "inadvertently occurred in stages to keep up with Elena's shifts in direction" – what's the meaning of "stages" here?
  • "Collectively, it was the "largest number of people ever evacuated", according to Robert Case." – either define "it" or don't use "it"
  • "many stayed relatively local" – "within the vicinity" might be a better wording, IMHO
  • "Heeding the advisories" – I don't believe warnings = advisories, even thesaurus-wise
  • "Offshore oil rig personnel" → "Personnel on offshore oil rigs"
  • "and simultaneously lines" – comma after "simultaneously"
  • "the first serious hurricane threat in 20 years (Hurricane Betsy caused catastrophic flooding in and around New Orleans in 1965)" – parentheses are generally discouraged in written prose, AFAIK
  • "As such, evacuations had begun" ... "as Governor Graham had recommended" – passive voice
  • "A mandatory evacuation was then issued overnight for ten more coastal counties encompassing 573,000 affected individuals" → "which affected 573,000 individuals"
  • "In the greater St. Petersberg, Pinellas County, area alone" → "In the greater St. Petersberg–Pinellas County area alone"
  • "in what was a United States record" – it's pretty apparent Elena was affecting the U.S.; "in what was a national record"
  • "put a strain on facilities, highways, and disaster plans" – "disaster plans" really doesn't fit in; the strain on was the actions occurring as a result of the plans
  • "shortened lead times" is stated because there was little time to prepare, right?
  • "increased awareness of available resources" – awareness, not usage?
  • "Post-storm phone surveys indicate" → "indicated"
  • "9 hours out of the expected 15" – "out of the" → "rather than the"
  • "With over 200,000 individuals recorded in" → "recorded to be in"
  • "the duration of the storm became an issue for evacuees becoming "restless"" – "evacuees became restless as a result of the duration of the storm" or a similar wording might be better IMO
  • "Although successful, the process was noted to have encountered issues such as time constraints and staffing shortages" ... "when the storm had begun to retrograde" ... "number of evacuees staying in shelters had already decreased" – passive voice
  • "had one day or less reprieve" → "less of", passive voice as well
  • "entire storm event" – a storm is an event, so I don't believe "event" is necessary here...
  • "1.25 million people from Florida had evacuated at some point" – passive voice
Impact
  • "assessed the worst of the hurricane's effects to have been focused around" → "determined the worst of the hurricane's effects focused around"; "to have" is passive/unnecessary
  • "with documented impacts" → "with impacts documented"
  • "Elena also had an impact" – PV
  • "rolled in high seas on August 29" – what's the meaning of "rolled"? Just turned slightly, or tipped over?
  • "Exxon had already evacuated the platform" – PV
  • "(the same pipeline broke two more times during the 1985 hurricane season)" – parentheses discouraged
  • "A large aspect of the hurricane's devastation" – "major" might be better IMHO
  • "virtually destroyed the most important sites" – sites of what?
Florida
  • "along the Atlantic coast of Florida, by August 31." – "on", remove the comma
  • "By then, the low-lying coast near Apalachicola had already begun to flood." – PV
  • "resulting in moderate to heavy rainfall amounts" – rainfall amounts can't be "heavy"; "producing moderate to heavy rainfall"
  • "Apalachiacola" should be "Apalachicola"
  • "the precipitation was of a less significant nature" → "the precipitation was less significant"
  • "further away from the hurricane's center" → "farther"; farther = physical distance
  • "Still, those totals represent a relatively dry storm" → "represented"
  • "interior southern Florida" = "interior portions of southern Florida", right?
  • "precipitation there was generally inconsequential" sounds like the precipitation didn't cause damage, when it should imply that it had little effect
  • "Official gust reports include 75 mph (121 km/h) at Cedar Key" – "indicated winds of [...] at [...]"
  • "Winds in Franklin County were estimated (unconfirmed)" → "Winds in Franklin County presumably approached [...], according to estimates"
  • "The storm's effects were not limited to the shore, as fallen trees" – stick a "however" after the comma
  • "Though Hurricane Elena never crossed Florida's coast, its drawn-out interaction with land agitated large swaths of the state's western shore." – "agitated" is rather flowery; "impacted" might be enough
  • "were generally from the south or southwest" – "generally blew from the south or southwest"
  • "quasi-permanent alterations" – again, "alterations" is a bit flowery, and IMHO, "impacts" or a similar word might work better
  • "overwashing shifted the southern part of the island up to 330 ft (100 m) from its original settlement" – in which direction? Literally upward?
  • "which was formed in 1921 after a hurricane" – link to the article, remove "was"
  • "which had grown narrower very gradually" ... "As a result, Clearwater Beach had become connected" – PV
  • "which lasted until 1991" – not an event; "existed"
  • "likelihood of nearly continuous maintenance" → "likelihood of the necessity of nearly continuance maintenance"
  • "with some damage" – weasel word alert! "damaged" might work if its severity isn't specified
  • "allowing both the winds and the tide to enter its interior" seems like unnecessary detail IMHO
  • "initially preventing residents from returning home" – residents of Cedar Key, located elsewhere, returning home, or individuals on Cedar Key prevented from returning to the mainland?
  • "and at the height of the storm, over 500,000 of its residents were without electricity" is relatively unrelated to the statement preceding it; it might be a better idea to move it near the beginning of the paragraph
  • "islands such as Dog Island, but mainly limited to poorly constructed buildings" → "; however, [it was] mainly limited..."
  • "spawned several tornadoes over central Florida" – "several such tornadoes" might be a better wording, given the preceding sentences
  • "Seven people were treated for non-life-threatening injuries, and later that same day, another tornado touched down over downtown Leesburg, with much less damage." The first part of the sentence describes the first tornado, the second describes a second one; perhaps the first portion could be merged to the previous sentence?
  • "although it may have been hit" – PV
Alabama
  • "as it accelerated toward its Gulf Coast landfall" → "as it accelerated toward the Gulf Coast"
  • "were estimated to have reached" – PV
  • "and concentrated damage closer" → "and damage concentrated closer"
  • "cutting soybean production by 10%" – "reducing" is a better word for this, IMO
  • "Farms had still been in the process of recovering" – PV
  • "Further inland" → "Farther inland"
Mississippi
  • "Several weather stations clocked sustained winds" – were the previous wind gusts not reported by stations? If they were reported by stations, then + "other"
  • "city's buildings had been damaged" ... "by the time the storm had cleared" – PV
  • "fed by broken natural gas pipe" – a gas pipe or gas pipes?
  • Add an "in" in "particularly Gulfport and Biloxi"
  • "generated beach erosion" → "caused beach erosion"
  • "the hurricane took a large toll on pecan and soybean crops and farms" – shouldn't the "and" be an "on"?
  • "Mississippi Power Company was responsible for 80,000 customers without power" – they didn't cause it; maybe "The storm left 80,000 customers under the jurisdiction of the Mississippi Power Company without power"?
Louisiana
  • Meaning of "by nature of its northwestward track" is unclear
  • "chiefly near Bogalusa" – "chiefly to areas near Bogalusa" might be clearer (the "to" is a personal preference)
  • Oh yes, people are electric. "Throughout the state, at least 40,000 electric customers lost power" – "electric" is unnecessary per "lost power"
Elsewhere
  • "Clinton to the south" → "To the south, Clinton"
  • "experienced freshwater flooding Floodwaters" – period
  • "one person died after a swollen creek swept her car off a bridge spanning it" – clarify that this was in Mountain Home
Aftermath
Florida
  • "for all federal, state, and volunteer agencies" – "all" is unnecessary
  • "Marking an early end to the annual "tourist season" ..." → "The hurricane created a 13% drop in visitors between October 1984 and October 1985 in Pinellas County, marking an early end to the annual "tourist season", which generally ends after Labor Day weekend; tourist spending fell accordingly."
  • "residents were allowed to return to their neighborhoods on a by-town basis" – I'll assume that means some residents were barred out? If so, then you could prepend "certain" in here
  • "obstructed evacuations" – well, most individuals /did/ evacuate; they alone wouldn't have prevented the evacuation as a whole from occurring
  • "Power was mostly restored" → "Power was restored to most areas", given the situation at St. George's Island
  • "service there was to take several additional days to restore" → "there, service was expected to be restored after several additional days"
  • "which went into affect less than a month after the storm" – specific date?
Central Gulf Coast
  • "and nighttime curfews were established in several cities" → "and as a result, ..."
  • "estimated as many as 3,000 homes" → "estimated that..."
  • "their occupants forced to" → "and as a result, their occupants forced to..."
  • "Still, resources such as food and ice start to run short" → "started to run short"
  • "able to reopen" → "which reopened" – they /were/ open for business, right?

That's everything I could find. (Comments made by HurricaneFan25)

Thanks HFan for the comments (and to TAM for posting them). I've addressed the first couple segments for now, and I'll get to the rest in due time. Juliancolton (talk) 02:51, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Followup – I've gone through this entire list of suggestions and corrections (thanks again!) and implemented most of them. There are several stylistic comments I disagreed with, and I'm too lazy to respond to each of them individually, but they don't have much of any effect on anything I don't think. Juliancolton (talk) 16:40, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

Image check - all OK (USGov, NASA, NOAA, Florida Photographic Collection, own work). Sources and authors provided.

Support – Phew! That one was heck of a read. I'm impressed with this one Julian, awesome job. Following the comments from Hink, I have no further concerns and I'm happy to support this! Cyclonebiskit (talk) 12:26, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate comments -- A belated welcome back, Julian. Just a couple of things:

  • Although the article has had the requisite image/source checks, since it's been almost two years since your last FAC I'd like to see a spotcheck of sources for accuracy and avoidance of close paraphrasing, which I'll request at WT:FAC.
  • While that's happening, be good to see someone outside the hurricane enthusiasts fraternity (whose expert opinion is highly valued BTW) continue where Dank left off to ensure general readability, absence of jargon, etc.
  • A fair few dup links show up using the checker; some may well be justified given the article's length but pls review and drop those that aren't absolute necessary. Note that the script highlights the second and subsequent links of the same term, not the first. Grand Isles for instance shows up twice, meaning it's been link three times in the article.

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:35, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the "welcome back" and comments! I've installed that link checker (which seems very useful) and made an effort to reduce unnecessary duplicate links (mostly cities). If it makes any difference, I felt like no time at all had passed when I started this article on the path to FAC. :) Juliancolton (talk) 04:00, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source check
    • Did a partial spotcheck of statements sourced to this revision from refs 3, 6, 7, 8, 11, 28, 31, 32, 35, and 55.
      • This source gives windspeed in knots, but it is given in mph/kph in the article. Given that a hasty conversion gives the actual mph as 126mph instead of the stated 125 mph in the article, I think it's reasonable to leave the conversions to the template and give the original speed as presented in references; this conversion occurs other places, such as citations to ref 11 where original data was given as meters.
        • (non-author comment) the NHC rounds 110 knots to 125 mph, so we round to 125 mph, so all hurricane articles who intensity was 100 knts, we use 125 mph. This may explain some of the conversions. YE Pacific Hurricane 16:07, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • Basically ↑. If the measurement starts out as an approximation or a descriptive threshold, it gets rounded to the nearest 5 to stay true to form. Otherwise it would be converted more faithfully. Juliancolton (talk) 16:39, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • The line The unpredictable nature of the hurricane, in conjunction with its arrival at popular tourist destinations on the Labor Day holiday weekend, severely complicated preparations along the Gulf Coast. to me does not seem to be adequately covered by the citation to p252 Barnes[2]
        • Eh... I think it does. The statement sums up what the entire page of the book says (multiple turns, huge amounts of people owing to locations in line of fire). It's not a cut-and-paste from the source, true, but there's nothing inaccurate or unsupported in "my" sentence IMO. Juliancolton (talk) 16:39, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • though noteworthy damage occurred across large areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, with impacts documented as far west as South Padre Island, Texas, and as far north as Kentucky. Nine deaths were attributed to the hurricane in four states and on the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and 134 people along Elena's path were hospitalized, many of them due to storm-related stress. does not appear to be adequately sourced to [3] (as a note, adding page numbers for some of these references would greatly help. For example, it's difficulty to source particular statements in ref 55 because page numbers are not given to correspond with those in the PDF.)
        • Well, most of that snippet is descriptive summary material derived from simple calculations/reckonings based on the rest of the article, kind of like a mini-intro. It's my understanding that those kinds of things don't need to be sourced. The only thing the given ref was intended to back up was the injury count (though admittedly I used the wrong refname... oops. Fixed that, but the rest of my rationale stands). Juliancolton (talk) 16:39, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

--Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 14:42, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the spotcheck. I'll look into adding page numbers for some of the more extensive sources. Juliancolton (talk) 16:39, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I hate to be pushy as I appreciate everyone's work here, but is there any chance you (or another reviewer) could finalize this source review? I'm going away next week, and if the article does indeed suffer from fundamental sourcing issues, I'd like to have some time to work on improvements before my absence. Juliancolton (talk) 16:00, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I have no problem with this being considered a Featured Article.--12george1 (talk) 21:53, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Don't see why this isn't a featured article.—CycloneIsaac–E-Mail 15:25, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I went to carry on with the source checks but, with all due respect, I'm not going to wade through a 33-page PDF (ref 59) to find the supporting text for one statement in the article. I won't go so far as to say the article fails 1c, but it's certainly not easily verifiable to interested readers. If the delegates are not satisfied with the amount of source checking David did, you may have to add page numbers to get anyone to finish it. --Laser brain (talk) 00:03, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Additional source spot-check
  • Ref 59:
  • Article text: "Along the predominately marshy coasts of Pasco, Hernando, and Citrus counties, erosion and structural damage were much more limited, partly due to the local southerly or southeasterly wind direction."
  • Source text: Failed verification. Page number given supports "marshy", but page does not support the rest of the statement.
  • Ref 63:
  • Article text: "leaving the bridge with unspecified damage"
  • Source text: OK.
  • Ref 86:
  • Article text: "The center of Elena passed 30 mi (50 km) south of mainland Alabama as it accelerated toward the Gulf Coast, impacting the state's two-county coast and offshore islands. Wind gusts at Dauphin Island, situated much closer to the hurricane's eye, were estimated to have reached 130 mph (210 km/h)"
  • Source text: Failed verification. Source is a broken link.
  • Ref 87(d):
  • Source text: "An unofficial and early estimate of losses on the island was $30 million."
  • Article text: OK.
Based on the 50% failure rate, I'd say there's stuff to do. I ran the external link checker and ref 86 is the only broken one. --Laser brain (talk) 13:03, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what I'm missing. :/ Page 2 of ref 59 (direct link) certainly backs that statement about the marsh coast. See the first and third sentences of the second paragraph, which define the geographical area, then the first sentence of the third paragraph, which says damage in this area was limited. Seven reasons to explain why are then listed, including (3) which explains the wind direction. Ref 86 worked recently for me so I'll look for a replacement link right away. – Juliancolton | Talk 14:30, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I see. It's an incorrect citation. You want to cite page "ii" which is the abstract. I was looking at the actual page "2" of the PDF, which if you select from the drop-down is just a chart. --Laser brain (talk) 14:58, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, that makes more sense! – Juliancolton | Talk 15:07, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not going to list them all here, but I did another batch of four spot-checks and didn't find any issues. I think if we can update that PDF link we're in a pretty good spot. --Laser brain (talk) 18:39, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks for following up. How's that? – Juliancolton | Talk 23:19, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.