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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hurricane Juan (1985)/archive1

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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 via FACBot (talk) 23:04, 13 February 2016 [1].

Hurricane Juan (1985)

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Nominator(s): ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:23, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a very unusual hurricane just over 30 years ago. It twisted and swirled around the Louisiana coast, causing widespread flooding at the end of a very bad hurricane year. To top it all off, the areas got affected only a month later by another hurricane. This is part of the ongoing focus to get 1985 Atlantic hurricane season to a featured topic. Hope you enjoy reading this article. I'll be happy to address any and all concerns. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:23, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • There are some cities mentioned with their state, which is not followed by a comma. For example, "just west of Pensacola, Florida late on", "near Burrwood, Louisiana and accelerated", "from the Port Arthur, Texas area."
  • The url for Reference #7, which is titled " The Floods of November, 1985: Then and Now", redirects to the NWS at Blacksburg, Virginia.
  • The 1985 AHS FT slowly marches forward...
  • The "Notes" section is a little weak for my tastes. Currency can be defined once on the first usage, and it's a little weird to define "tropical wave" in-article when that term is linked to a fairly well-developed article. There's lots of other meteo jargon that seems content with a wikilink.
  • , causing widespread flooding for several days. - Does this mean it was actively causing places to flood for several days, or that the floodwaters lingered for several days?
  • I removed the "several days" bit, as I don't actually have the duration of the floods. I mostly meant to tie the erratic motion to several days of rainfall, but I'm afraid the sources didn't explicitly say that either. Now the first sentence is simpler, gets the point across more easily. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:25, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The energy from Juan helped spawn an occluded low in the Tennessee Valley, which produced additional rainfall throughout the region. - I'm not sure the provided source says Juan was related to the occluded low, only that the new low extended the flooding rains (same for the "Inland and Mid-Atlantic" section).
  • Added another ref to back it up, which says: During its northern passage, Juan spawned a small secondary low pressure system which moved eastward across North Carolina and passed offshore. This system, together with Juan, produced primarily moderate rainfall in the study area. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:25, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref 8 doesn't seem to support all of the evacuation stats at the beginning of the "Preparations" section... but I could be missing something.
  • and two beaches were closed in southern Texas - I think you should be a little more specific about the location, since (presumably) lots of beaches were closed to swimming.
  • leaving debris and marsh behind when the storm passed - Not sure what "marsh" means in this context.
  • The total storm cost in the state was estimated at about $776,000. - A little weird to be "estimated, about" and such a specific number...
  • The ref said "about $151,000", "about $500,000", "over $100,000", and "25,000". The only one that was a pretty exact number was the $25,000. Not sure how to handle the statewide damage total otherwise. Would you prefer seeing something like "...was estimated around $776,000"? I realize that's still pretty exact for "around", but given sources I don't want to round incorrectly. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:25, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Other than that, it looks pretty good. I've done some minor copyediting myself. Once the above points are addressed, I'll be happy to offer my support for the article based on prose, presentation, and comprehensiveness... though I'm no citation whiz, so somebody else might want to check the references for consistency, etc. – Juliancolton | Talk 03:20, 15 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Imzadi1979—what is it about hurricane and highways at FAC? Anyways, I have a comment after meandering here from my own nomination:

Hurricanes and highways belong to great projects :) Seriously though, I think they both benefit from having lots of data from government institutions, and they are very distinctly named. Nor'easters, wars, social media phenomena, songs - they all have their own issues why they are difficult to do. Not saying hurricanes/roads are easy, but both have a very defined scope (some absurdly so!), and so there are a lot of high quality sources covering a vast range of aspects. Wikipedia is also fortunate that we have a bevy of active and enthusiastic editors in both projects. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:25, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • In footnote 11, the newspaper's name should be credited as "The Blade (Toledo, Ohio)". The name changed back in 1959 or so to that form, although Google likes to use the older name anyway.

Otherwise the citations are in good shape, formatting-wise. I skimmed the prose, and if Juliancolton can support with some fixes, so can I. (JC, ping me when you support so that I can update the status of my review.)

One suggestion I have is to use the {{inflation}} template, if possible, to provide modern-day values for the damage costs. With its associated templates, you can automate the inflation calculations and use the US National GDP per capita calculation, which is handy for large values like the ones in this article. I can help out if you like as I use this a lot in highway articles to great effect. Imzadi 1979 → 11:39, 18 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We used to use inflation figures, but it's not particularly useful for storm articles. By inflation, Juan's $1.5 billion in 1985 dollars is $3.34 billion in 2015 dollars. However, that's still pretty abstract, as Hurricane Isaac (2012) caused $2.2 billion (a similar amount) but caused far less damage. Building codes and populations are constantly changing, so that the inflation of the damage estimate isn't that accurate. It's not like comparing the cost of a movie ticket or raising a family, or even building a road. There is a metric that compares storm damage based on population changes, which is slightly more accurate for comparing newer and older storms (known as wealth normalization), but we don't have that for every storm. I hope that response makes sense, and thanks for the review! ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:25, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I figured that there was an appropriate explanation regarding them. Hopefully there's some solution in the future to help provide a bit of context.

Comments by Edwininlondon

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Good article. A few comments though:

  • Maybe it's just me but I feel on occasion that the loss of lives comes across as not as important as economic damage. The lead ends with the afterthought "and there were 12 deaths." And the Impact section's first paragraph has total financial damage and total injuries but no death toll.
  • Sadly, with such large storms, deaths are relatively common. A nor'easter a few weeks ago killed 40 people, but the focus was more on the widespread disruptions and the flooding. I wanted to balance the effects with the narrative I found in newspapers following the storm, which focused on the hugely disruptive flooding, as well as the unpredictable nature of the storm. In addition, nine of them occurred in the same small area through similar circumstances, so I didn't want to talk about them too much and give undue detail. I hope this doesn't come across as heartless or cruel, just that it's a delicate balance, and if you still feel it needs more emphasis on the human loss, I would be open to adding more on that. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:20, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm having trouble with the maths. I guess the $1.4 billion damage in the Virginias doesn't count, but this is not actually stated. Even so, the total damage is given as $1.5 billion and there's $1 billion in Louisiana. Where does the remaining $500 million come from, as the highest non-Louisiana damage I can see is $1 million in Florida?
  • With regards to the Virginias, I added "This excludes the effects from the subsequent flooding in the Mid-Atlantic. " Sadly, I never found a great state-by-state damage total, which is a problem with older storms (and even some newer ones). I'm guessing the total was higher in Louisiana, even though I could never confirm a higher damage total for Louisiana. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:20, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unfortunately, with rounding and lack of exact government reports, it's tough to get exact totals. The $1.5 billion is well-cited, and this source backs up that "most of it related to flooding in southern Louisiana", but most sources I've read that deal specifically with Louisiana only say $1 billion, which is a nice, round number that is very easy to round to. Worse, the source that does give some minor semblance to state-by-state damage breakdown has some very broad categories for damage estimates (so that Juan in Louisiana is listed as $100 million to $1 billion), but that's even preliminary. I'm not sure how to deal with it other than how I've dealt with it so far. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:32, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The use of "Then-governor" is a bit odd because it makes me think Edwards still is governor, which doesn't seem to be the case
  • I added "then" for governor Edwards. I wasn't sure how that part would be received, whether it was obvious it was about the governor back in 1985, so I'm happy to add the "then" and make it consistent. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:20, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "peak winds of 92 mph (148 km/h) and gusts to 110 mph (176 km/h)" just being a layman here, but what is the difference?
  • I made a mistake, I should've clarified "peak sustained winds". Sustained wind means that the wind value is sustained over one minute, while a gust can last as short as 3 seconds. I added "sustained" to this example. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:20, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • These 2 statements seem to contradict each other: "Juan also produced 36–49 ft (11–15 m) waves" and "Juan produced waves approaching 70 ft (21 m)."
  • Should it not simply be "a boat named Miss Agnes"?
  • "Because the hurricane looped twice near the coastline, Hurricane Juan" could probably be a bit more elegant with the word hurricane mentioned only once
  • I don't get the "although" in the sentence "Tides peaked at around 3.3 ft (1 m) in the other coastal states, although offshore winds caused below-normal tides"
  • The sentence "Hurricane Juan was one of the latest storms on record to affect Texas." puzzled me. Firstly that "latest storm on record" seemed superfluous. Secondly because Texas' rainfall was already discussed in detail, it seemed to state the obvious. May I suggest to ditch the sentence and simply state "In Texas, the heavy rainfall from the storm.."?
  • Oh, it means in the calendar year. Texas very rarely gets storms in late October and early November, so I think it's worth including, but perhaps I need to spiffy up the language. I changed it to "Hurricane Juan was one of the latest tropical cyclones in the year to affect Texas." Does that make sense? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:20, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Something is not right here: "In Violet, a man drowned he fell from his boat "
  • And this sentence doesn't flow for me either: "After a year of hurricanes Elena and Gloria and flooding in Puerto Rico, the effects of Juan and the mid-Atlantic flooding caused the American Red Cross ran out of funds while responding to the flood disaster, prompting an emergency fundraising appeal."
  • Source review. I was going to do one, but I'm not keen on this style of referencing. It's just too hard without the actual page numbers given for each sentence. I see that FA article Hurricane Kate (1985) also uses this style of referencing, so I guess it is acceptable. Nevertheless, Ref 2: Robert A. Case (1986): the page number given is 1390, but most of the a b .. n are on other pages, so should the reference not be "1390-1405"? Edwininlondon (talk) 11:35, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for the review! It has definitely helped, and if any of my comments are cause for concern, I'll gladly address any further issues. Cheers, ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:20, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note

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Did I miss an image review? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:51, 13 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Ian Rose: doesn't look like there was one but it's easy enough to do myself. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 20:08, 13 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
File:Juan 28 oct 1985 2034Z N9.jpg – Public domain work (PD-USGov) by NOAA
File:Juan 1985 track.png – Public domain work by yours truly (originally uploaded by Jdorje) with base map from NASA's Blue Marble
File:Hurricane Juan (1985).JPG – Public domain work (PD-USGov) by NOAA
File:Juan 1985 rainfall.gif – Public domain work (PD-USGov) by NOAA; could use some format cleaning on the commons-end, but source is provided
File:Juan 1985 track enlarged.png – Public domain work by yours truly with base map from NASA's Blue Marble
Tks CB; @Hurricanehink: you have several duplinks so pls review using the checker (ping me if you haven't installed it) as I doubt the article is long enough to warrant them. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:03, 13 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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