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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 Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 21:38, 12 August 2017 [1].

Hurricane Andrew

[edit]
Nominator(s): 12george1 (talk) 01:42, 4 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about one of the most devastating hurricanes in U.S. history. Since the failed nominations in 2012 and 2013, I have worked on addressing the issues brought up during those FACs. Additionally, practically every section has been revised to provide a better and more comprehensive summary of preparations, meteorological aspects, impacts, and aftermath related to the hurricane. I have also garnered information from a wider variety of sources, including several academic journal articles (a major issue raised in a previous FAC). The aftermath now includes info on topics barely or not at all mentioned previously. These are just a few examples of many improvements I've made to the article. I hope to have this article as TFA on August 24, the 25th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew's landfall in Florida.12george1 (talk) 01:42, 4 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support

  • The watches and warnings could be summarized for the Gulf Coast. Also, given that the preps mention Alabama first and progress westward, shouldn't the other preps do the same? After mentioning watches/warnings, you could have Mississippi, then the Louisiana paragraph, then Texas.
  • "In New Orleans, Mayor Sidney Barthelemy ordered evacuation" - missing [the]?
  • You mention/link both "Eleuthera" and "North Eleuthera" in the Bahamas section. Given the hurricane-force winds reported at the latter, I'm guessing it was also the location of landfall?
  • "Harbour Island, also located near Eleuthera"
  • "Much of the northwestern Bahamas received damage,[46] with estimates reaching $250 million." - the $ figure is explained weirdly, and should be something like: "with estimated monetary losses of $250 million"
  • Poor intro to the Florida impact section. Move the 4th paragraph to be the first, as it feels like more of an intro.
  • "Tides were generally between only 4 to 6 ft (1.2 to 1.8 m) above normal in the Biscayne Bay area" - this feels odd. There is no justification for the "only"
  • "Storm surge on the west coast was widespread, but mostly light, with a peak height of 6 ft (1.8 m), measured at both Everglades City and Goodland. The storm surge was reported as far north as Homosassa. " - feels like this could be condensed a bit.
  • "At some locations, the instruments measuring wind speeds failed before the highest winds occurred." - since this follows the peak wind gust, perhaps this should be "At other locations" instead?
  • When you mention "National Hurricane Center", it is the first time that it is implied that the agency is in Florida. Perhaps "At the National Hurricane Center building in Miami"?
  • "On the west coast of Florida, sustained winds did not exceed 39 mph (63 km/h) at Marco Island" - well did it not exceed 29 mph either?
  • "Additionally, 90% of mobile homes in the county were destroyed, while the destruction of 99% of mobile homes occurred in Homestead." - you should rewrite for active voice so you can trim it a bit.
  • At the Homestead Air Force Base, re-opened two years later as Homestead Air Reserve Base, most of the 2,000 buildings on the base became "severely damaged or unusable" - why the quotes? And you should make it clearer that the hurricane basically destroyed the base. The article for the base says as much.
  • "Nearby, the small town of Florida City suffered also heavily. Over 120 homes were demolished, while 700 others were damaged. City hall was damaged beyond repairs, with the roof being torn off and some walls collapsing." - three sentences for a small town? Make it one and summarize, since there is already a sub-article. And isn't "hall" usually capitalized?
  • "Due to poor construction, damage to homes in communities such as Country Walk and Saga Bay resembled that of an F3 tornado" - this implies the locations were part of Florida City. And find a different way of saying "poor construction" and better explain the F3 bit.
  • Rewrote. There's not much more specific details on the bit about the F3-level damage, though than that those communities likely didn't experience winds of that intensity (158-206 mph). Then again, the report could also be basing it on Andrew having been classified as a Category 4 at the time it was written--12george1 (talk) 02:05, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Crop damage in the county totaled about $509 million." - you don't mention "county" once here.
  • "About 500 trees were downed in Deerfield Beach, while several roofs were damaged during the storm." - not sure this is needed, given the sentence two prior. Also, is this needed in this article? "Waves inflicted structural impacts on an incomplete fishing pier. "
  • You should specify whether counties were north of south of the storm, for better flow. Like, "In Collier County to the north of the path"

That's it through the end of Florida section. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 20:55, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Looks better already!
  • Throughout the parish, 477 homes and 890 mobile homes were demolished; 1,394 homes and 634 mobile homes were severely damaged; and 3,970 homes, 652 mobile homes, and 148 apartments were impacted to a minor degree. - seems just like a lot of statistics. I feel like the distinction between home and mobile home isn't terribly necessary, especially since you have the same breakdown a few sentences later, and you have a state breakdown in the next paragraph. It's just a lot of text without giving a lot of information.
  • One company reported 13 platforms destroyed, 104 structures damaged, and 5 drilling wells blown off course. - which company?
  • At the Columbus Metropolitan Airport in Muscogee County, a building and several billboards and signs sustained moderate damage. - feels like the writing could be stronger.
  • A tornado in Howard County damaged several homes, some extensively; tossed and demolished a recreational vehicle and its trailer; downed numerous trees; and flattened some cornfields. - bit of a run-on
  • Despite swift structural rebuilding in some areas and Bahamas Director General of Tourism Baltron Bethel stating "the physical devastation affected about 2 percent of our rooms, cottages and apartments.", officials expected a 10%–20% decline in tourism. - poor sentence format. I'd split this into two sentence. First have the quote from Bethel, and the 2nd sentence could start with "Despite..."
  • "After the United States House of Representatives appropriated aid to victims of Hurricane Iniki in Hawaii and Typhoon Omar in Guam, the cost was later increased to $11.1 billion. " - was $11.1 billion just for Andrew?
  • "Governor Chiles considered asking the Florida State Legislature to raise taxes, stating that "No matter how much Congress appropriates to repair damage from Hurricane Andrew, the state will face a substantial cleanup bill"." - did he?
  • "set up six tent cities, five in Florida City and Homestead, with an additional one later opened at the Miccosukee Indian Reservation." - so why not just say "set up seven tent cities"? Or was it 5 between Florida City and Homestead and the 6th was Miccosukee?
  • the United States Department of Defense eventually expended an initial amount of over $100 million for repairs. - weird wording
  • "Due to damage to the Homestead Sports Complex and fearing the relocation of their middle-class and affluent fans, the Cleveland Indians moved their spring training location to Chain of Lakes Park in Winter Haven." - this is different than most of the preceding paragraph. Maybe find elsewhere to put it?
  • Check references 30 and 32.

All in all, a really good article, and I'm close to supporting. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 15:32, 10 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Much better all around. I support! ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 03:12, 11 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments. YE Pacific Hurricane 04:54, 11 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • ". A barometric pressure of 922 mbar (27.23 inHg) in the mainland Florida landfall made Andrew the fourth most intense hurricane to strike the United States." this reads as if the pressure itself made landfall. Could "With a barometric pressure of 922 mbar (27.23 inHg) at the time of landfall in Florida, Andrew is the fourth most intense hurricane to strike the United States." work? YE Pacific Hurricane 04:54, 11 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Several hours later, the hurricane emerged over the Gulf of Mexico at Category 4 strength, with the Gulf Coast of the United States in its path. After additional weakening, Andrew moved ashore near Morgan City, Louisiana, as a low-end Category 3 storm." mind noting the storm turned north somewhere. In general, I feel direction changes should be noted in the lead. YE Pacific Hurricane 04:54, 11 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Image review:
File:Andrew 23 aug 1992 1231Z.jpg: Good use, source temporarily offline.
File:Andrew 1992 track.png: License and use seem fine.
File:Hurricane Andrew sequence.jpg: Use is fine, source link broken.
File:Andrew-Floyd.jpg: Use is fine, source link broken.
File:HurricaneAndrew.jpg: License and use are fine.
File:Hurricaneandrewlouisiana.JPG: Use fine, source broken.
File:Destruction following hurricane andrew.jpg: License and use seem fine.
File:Dadeland Mobile Home Park after Andrew - Flickr - NOAA Photo Library.jpg née File:Wea00566 - Flickr - NOAA Photo Library.jpg: License and use seem fine, I've renamed the file on Commons to a clearer name however.
File:Andrewlaplacetornado.png: License and use seem fine.
File:Andrew 1992 rainfall.gif: License and use OK, but the file would profit from being linked to an explanation page rather than directly.
File:Hurricane andrew fema 2563.jpg: License and use seem fine.
File:FEMA - 1926 - Photograph by Bob Epstein taken on 08-24-1992 in Florida.jpg: License and use are fine.
File:FEMA - 2378 - Photograph by Bob Epstein taken on 08-24-1992 in Florida.jpg: License and use are fine.
File:FEMA - 2399 - Photograph by Bob Epstein taken on 08-24-1992 in Florida.jpg: License and use are fine.
File:FEMA - 2599 - Photograph by Bob Epstein taken on 08-24-1992 in Florida.jpg: License and use are fine.
Good ALT text. As it appears to be typical for such articles, many images come from the US government. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:07, 28 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Source review—no issues with the reliability of the sources used. Turning toward formatting and consistency:

  • A few footnotes are using "Month DD, YYYY" formatting for dates while most of the rest are using "YYYY-MM-DD" where appropriate. They should be harmonized. (Personally, I prefer using the former format instead of the ISO-style latter format because you can't properly handle a publication date of "November 2004" in the ISO-style.)
  • In n. 10, you have separate authors listed as "National Hurricane Center; Hurricane Research Division". Is the latter a subunit of the former? If so, the semicolon should not be there. You could either have |publisher= National Hurricane Center |author=Hurricane Research Division or just |author= National Hurricane Center Hurricane Research Division and use |publisher= National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (United States is really superfluous unless there is another "National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration" in another country.)
  • In n. 15, UPI is a publisher, not a published work. It should not be rendered in italics. This would also apply to Knight-Ridder and the Associated Press, which are other wire services.
  • In n. 17, The Washington Post is not the publisher of The Tech, a separate newspaper/online publication several states away.
  • In n. 20, "Post, Buckley, Schuh & Jernigan, Inc." is the author of that source, not the published work.
  • In n. 23, the Detroit Free Press is not published in Miami, Florida, unless there is a different paper with that same title. Miami may be the dateline for the article, but it is not the place of publication. Please audit other footnotes for similar misuse of the |location= parameter.
  • In n. 24, The Palm Beach Post should be in italics as a published long-form work, not in roman (plain) text as a publisher.
  • In n. 25, where is the Sun-Sentinel published? When a newspaper name omits its city of publication, it's traditional to give that city separately. That's the purpose of |location= in the citation template. (It's a form of disambiguation because there are multiple papers in the world named just The Times, for example.)
  • In n. 26, you don't need to include Miami as the location of The Miami Herald; that is a given based on the name of the paper.
  • In n. 89, you've included an access date for a source lacking a URL. That flags an error message, so either a URL needs to be added, or the access date needs to be commented out or removed. Ditto n. 103.
  • In n. 113, it appears that all of the authors were placed in the same |author= parameter, which actually corrupts the metadata generated by the citation template. They should be placed in separate |author1=, |author2=, etc parameters.
  • You only need to wikilink the first mention of Newspapers.com in any footnote. Ditto the first mention of any newspaper name or publisher.
  • You should also audit the citations for the distinction between a publisher and a published work.
    • A publisher is the name of an organization, company or government agency. This would also be the call letters of a radio or TV station or the name of a TV network. (TV stations/networks publish individual TV series as works, such as 60 Minutes broadcast by CBS; an individual segment on that show would be analogous to an article in a magazine.) This is what goes in |publisher= and is rendered in roman text.
    • A published work is the name of a newspaper, a magazine, a news website (when not the same as the publisher), etc. This is what goes in |work= (or an alias like |newspaper=) and is rendered in italics. Not all websites have distinct names; Upper Michigan's Source is published by WLUC-TV, yet its competitor WBUP-TV lacks a distinct name for its local news website.
    • A republisher, like an archive site or Newspapers.com, goes in |via= to indicate that you consulted a republished copy.
    • Just to single out one, look at n. 45. I'm reading the original publisher's name rendered in italics while the website that is republishing the source is listed where I expect to see the original publisher. Also, I disagree with using {{cite report}} and how it handles formatting the names of reports that should, as long-form documents of their own analogous to books, be rendered in italics. If you were to switch up the template and parameters, you could have:
      • Bahamas and U.S.A. – Hurricane Andrew Aug 1992 UN DHA Information Reports 1-3 (Report). New York: United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs. 1992-08-26. Retrieved 2012-06-20 – via ReliefWeb.
      • {{cite book |url = http://reliefweb.int/node/34555 |title = Bahamas and U.S.A. – Hurricane Andrew Aug 1992 UN DHA Information Reports 1-3 |publisher = United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs |type = Report |location= New York |via = ReliefWeb |date = 1992-08-26 |access-date = 2012-06-20}}

        It's up to you if you want to repeat the UN agency name as the author of the report in the absence of a specific person or subunit of the agency credited as the author.

  • You can simplify some of these publishers, but you need to fix how some are named to eliminate the possessive case. "United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service" is not proper. That can be either "United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Weather Service" or just "National Weather Service" because the agency is known well enough on its own. (Especially if you wikilink the first mention in a footnote.)
  • If you're going to credit Newspapers.com for republishing content, why are you not crediting Google News?
  • Please audit for consistency regarding newspaper names that start with "The". You have dropped it from The New York Times and included it in The Washington Post, among others. Not every paper has it, so you'll need to check if you aren't sure.
  • If you're only citing Provenzo once, why not just list the full citation in the footnote instead of listing it separately below? It looks like all four of those sources listed below are cited just once, so I'd merge them into the footnotes for simplicity.
  • One last suggestion: it would give the overall citations an extra bit of polish if you were to harmonize the capitalization of the various titles. If one were to consult the APA style guide, he'd note that it says to render all article titles in sentence case (only the first first and proper names capitalized) regardless of how the source capitalized its own titles. Other style guides would say to render them all in title case (first word, last word, all nouns and verbs, etc capitalized but not shorter prepositions and articles under 5 letters, etc).

Overall, I'm not faulting the sources used, just the formatting for their presentation. I would not support promotion of the article until things are handled more consistently, and more importantly, more correctly. Imzadi 1979 → 21:10, 28 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've fixed or responded to everything except for the first two bulletins under "You should also audit the citations...". Are you just putting that information there or are there specific examples of what I need to fix in regards to those comments?--12george1 (talk) 04:28, 29 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • You still have work to do yet. If I noted above that you should audit the article for something, it's because the issue is prevalent in multiple locations. I highlighted the first example and asked you to look through the rest for that same issue. Otherwise, I can list several dozen citations that need the same fixes, but that would make this source review rather lengthy and tedious.

      Looking at just the last 6 footnotes, "New Haven, Connecticut" does not need to be listed; it's implied by the name of the paper (n. 128). FEMA is the name of the author, not the published work in n. 129, so it should not be in italics. The archive could be the published work, and FEMA would again be the publisher (no need to use DHS there). In n. 130, I'm sure the residents of a notable town in Pennsylvania would be shocked to learn that The Gettysburg Times is actually published in Louisiana, although the paper may have run an article with Morgan City as the dateline. Likewise, I'm sure Kansas residents will be glad to know that The Salina Journal is really published in New Orleans (n. 131). As for the last two, you knew you needed to list a city for the Telegraph Herald, but that' published in Dubuque, Iowa, but you left out the city for The Daily News. Imzadi 1979 → 21:37, 2 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

      • I fixed the locations and the FEMA references. But I'm still quite not sure what you're asking me to do with those two comments I didn't reply to. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the first comment, I think you're asking me to reformat the references if my source is a TV segment, but I'm not citing a segment. As for the second comment, you're asking me to find the distinct website name for news website (e.g. Upper Michigan's Source and WLUC-TV), right? I think you're going to have to show me a few examples in the article because I can't find the references to news websites where the names differ--12george1 (talk) 01:07, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments

Just a couple of consistency issues and some other minor stuff.

  • "It produced hurricane-force winds along its path through Louisiana, leaving about 230,000 people without electricity" – clarify how by changing to "... through Louisiana, damaging large stretches of power lines and thus leaving about 230,000 people without electricity"
  • For pressure readings the conversion to inHg varies between 3 and 4 significant figures. Maybe use |sigfig=4 for everything?
  • "winds of 35 mph (56 km/h) extending out only about 90 mi (140 km) from the center" – I'm pretty sure the source states 150 km unless there's some conversion error.
  • "the storm emerged into the Gulf of Mexico with winds of 135 mph (215 km/h)" – shouldn't the conversion from 115 knots give 130 mph?
  • "the storm destroyed about 25,524 homes and damaged 101,241 others" – using "about" here is a little weird since 25,524 is already quite precise.
  • "Winds were minor in the state, reaching 30 mph (48 km/h) in Port Arthur" – was this the highest recorded windspeed from Andrew in Texas?
  • "causing poor drainage flooding in Morgantown" – flooding due to poor drainage? Got confused for a moment there.
  • "reformed their chief emergency agency, known as the National Emergency and Management Agency" – was this renamed or something? Wording is a tad awkward.
  • Last paragraph of Hurricane_Andrew#Florida_3 – third sentence should be in past tense? Also I think the last sentence could be shortened seeing as it's not particularly relevant to Andrew 20 years later.

Otherwise this is a really comprehensive article with commendable effort put into it. Nice work. ~ KN2731 {talk} 14:24, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments

  • "The storm was also ranked as the costliest hurricane in United States history until being surpassed by Katrina in 2005." - Do we need the "being" here? Makes the sentence awkward to me.
  • "Passing directly through the town of Homestead" - Nitpicking, but Homestead is a city, not a town.
  • "The hurricane left 65 people dead along its trail of destruction, as well as $26.5 billion (1992 USD) in damage across the battered areas." - You already said "along its trail of destruction," so I'd axe "across the battered areas."
  • "The hurricane destroyed 63,000 homes and damaged more than 101,000 others throughout Florida" - You say in the first paragraph is damaged 101,000 in Miami-Dade alone. Did it not damage anymore throughout the entire state?
  • Good catch. Turns out that actually those were the overall numbers throughout the state, though the vast majority of destroyed and damaged homes were in Miami-Dade County. I fixed this later in the article as well--12george1 (talk) 03:23, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "With a barometric pressure of 922 mbar (27.23 inHg) at the time of landfall in Florida, Andrew is the fourth most intense hurricane to strike the United States." - Always specify on record.
  • "Hurricane Andrew first inflicted structural damage as it moved through the Bahamas, especially in Cat Cays, lashing the islands with storm surge, hurricane-force winds, and tornadoes." - You linked hurricane-force winds and tornadoes, which most people understand, but not storm surge, which is complicated? :P
  • "The hurricane caused the deaths of 17 people in the state, six of whom drowned offshore." - You're supposed to spell out numbers under 10, but only if there isn't a larger number in the sentence. In this case, six should be 6.
  • "Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, who took office while the storm was active, urged residents to "take this hurricane seriously". - Periods go inside quotation marks.
  • "At the Homestead Air Force Base, most of the 2,000 buildings on the base were severely damaged or became unusable." - Eh, I'd recommend "rendered" over "became."

Otherwise, fantastic work. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk · contributions) 02:19, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Dank

[edit]
  • As always, feel free to revert my copyediting.
  • "to about Miami Beach": I changed that to the "Miami Beach area", but better would be "north of", "south of", etc., or just "Miami Beach", if that's better.
  • "Almost immediately, President Bush promised, "Help is on the way," and mobile kitchens, food, and tents, along with over 20,000 units from the Florida Army National Guard (124th Infantry Regiment from Florida); the 24th Infantry Division from Fort Wainwright, the 82nd Airborne Division in Fort Bragg, and the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum.": Not a sentence. Also, "almost immediately" is an oxymoron and usually ambiguous. It's not a helpful phrase in cases where something is being done in response to something else; depending on context, people will assume that one thing came not long after the other.
  • Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. Well done. These are my edits.
  • @FAC coordinators: : There's a request on Mike Christie's talk page to try to get Andrew up at TFA in August for its 25th anniversary. Mike is mostly away for about two weeks, but I can help with this request. I'm not good at judging whether there are problems that hold up a FAC nomination, but if this one is close, it would be nice to make that deadline. Is there anything I can do? - Dank (push to talk) 14:54, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Dank: There are a few issues outstanding with the source review by Imzadi1979. I'm not quite sure where we stand with that, but if you want to take a look at it, that is the only thing holding this up. Sarastro1 (talk) 19:37, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The only thing stopping me is a lack of competence. - Dank (push to talk) 20:06, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Don't let that stop you! It has never stopped me yet! Sarastro1 (talk) 21:36, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
12george1, Imzadi1979 ... thanks to both of you for your work on this, how close are we to wrapping this up? - Dank (push to talk) 00:26, 11 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment: This has been open a very long time now, and only the source review has been holding it up. While I appreciate the depth of review given here, I am not sure that all of the issues raised are directly related to WP:WIAFA. I have taken a look, and can see nothing obvious that would prevent this article from meeting 2c in terms of consistency. Also, there has been no response from Imzadi for some considerable time, which I can only assume to mean that the major issues have been addressed. If there are any remaining issues, these can be taken up on the article talk page after this has been promoted. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:37, 12 August 2017 (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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