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Hurricane Dennis

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Hurricane Dennis (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

As of 21 November 2024, 13:35 (UTC), this page is active and open for discussion. An FAC coordinator will be responsible for closing the nomination.
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Nominator(s): ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:28, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about Hurricane Dennis, the first major hurricane to hit the United States during the busy 2005 Atlantic hurricane season (it would be one of four). Dennis used to be a featured article from 2006 to 2010. Over the years, Juliancolton (talk · contribs) created a number of sub-articles for Dennis involving the United States, and the article was close to being a featured topic, only the main article was extremely short (for a retired storm article). So following the merger of the sub-articles, plus additional content and copyediting, I now feel that the article is among the most thorough accounts of the hurricane. Hopefully I can address any of your concerns, should they arise. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:28, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Don't use fixed px size
  • Some images are missing alt text
Thanks for the image review Nikkimaria (talk · contribs). Zzzs (talk · contribs) helped fix the first two points. As for the third, I'm not sure if I understand correctly. The page for Dennis 205 path has the standard information that appears in every tropical cyclone track map, such as the fact that it's in the public domain, what the symbols mean, when it was made. Compare to other featured hurricane articles' track maps here and here. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 15:48, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed that one too FYI. The code was broken by the standard file info format. That's all I'm going to be doing for this nomination. ZZZ'S 16:20, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oh sweet thanks for fixing that too. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:40, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Drive-by comments

  • Comment: Just a drive-by, but I could not tell from the lead paragraph whether it briefly attained the record strength and held the record permanently, or whether it attained the record strength for its duration and held the record only briefly (or possibly both). An alternate option might be "...tropical cyclone that briefly became held the record for the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever to form before August"? Mrfoogles (talk) 18:28, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

EG

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I might be able to leave a few comments later. Feel free to ping me if I haven't left any comments by Friday. – Epicgenius (talk) 16:36, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lead:
  • Para 1: "Six days later, Dennis's record intensity was surpassed by Hurricane Emily." - This sentence seems like an outlier, given that the previous and next sentences both talk about Dennis. Should this be moved to the end of the paragraph and slightly reworded?
  • I moved the bit about Emily to the end of the paragraph, changing it to ""While Dennis was still active as a tropical cyclone, it lost its status as the strongest hurricane before August to Hurricane Emily, which also moved through the Caribbean." What do you think? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:38, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Para 2: "However, the storm only killed one person in Jamaica but resulted in over $34.5 million in damages." - To me, it sounds somewhat awkward to start a sentence with "However" and then also use the word "but" in the middle of the sentence. I would cut "however", since the word "only" already emphasizes the low death toll.
  • Para 2: "Its agricultural industry was also affected" - Granma Province's, or Cuba's?
  • Para 3: "In neighboring Georgia, the storm killed one person due to drowning." - I'd personally go with something like "In neighboring Georgia, one person drowned due to the storm".
  • Para 3: "Dennis spawned ten tornadoes in the United States, all of them weak." - Could this be reworded to just "Dennis spawned ten weak tornadoes in the United States", or is there a reason for this specific wording?
  • Para 4: "Dennis's passage led to the retirement of its name due to its effects" - Similarly, I'd say something like "Due to the extensive damage, the name "Dennis" was retired". "Effects" is vague; "extensive damage" is more clear.
More in a bit. – Epicgenius (talk) 14:50, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the feedback so far, Epicgenius (talk · contribs). ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:38, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. I'll have some more feedback tomorrow. – Epicgenius (talk) 20:42, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the delay. Due to work and a concert that I was excited about, I forgot about this. I'll resume my review below.
Meteorological history:
  • Para 1: "It later emerged over the Atlantic Ocean on June 29 and moved quickly to the west" - I might be missing something, but did it disappear and re-emerge, or did it travel over Africa for three days?
  • Para 1: "It then subsequently traversed" - The words "then" and "subsequently" are redundant to each other in this context.
  • Para 2: The second paragraph contains several "howevers", which distracts from what is otherwise a well-written paragraph. I would consider replacing or removing some of them.
Caribbean:
  • Para 1: Is "centre national de météorologie" all-lowercase in its original language?
  • Para 4: "About 140,000 people were mobilizing to assist in preparations, including about 1,600 civil defense units" - Should this be "About 140,000 people mobilized"?
More in a bit. – Epicgenius (talk) 23:59, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Preparations - United States:
  • Para 1: "The NHC dropped all watches and warnings after Dennis moved inland" - I might be missing something, but why would the NHC drop these watches and warnings if the hurricane still posed a danger inland? Are these storm-surge watches/warnings?
  • Great question! At the time, the NHC issued hurricane watches and warnings for coastlines, and local National Weather Service office picked up the types of warnings you'd expect (flood warning, thunderstorm warning, whatnot). There were no storm surge watches/warnings until 2017, and no inland hurricane warnings until this year. I did tweak the wording a bit to: "The NHC dropped all watches and warnings after Dennis weakened to tropical storm status as it moved inland." ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:43, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Para 1: "1.8 million people evacuated in the southeastern United States" - I'd go with "1.8 million people in the southeastern United States evacuated". Otherwise, it might sound like the people evacuated to the southeast US.
  • Done. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:43, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Para 1: "The Red Cross put dozens of volunteers on standby to go into regions affected by the storm, opening 180 shelters along the gulf coast." - Isn't Gulf Coast capitalized?
  • Hah I overcorrected, I changed two instances back to "Gulf Coast". ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:43, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Para 2: "Key West Mayor Jimmy Weekley ordered bars in the city to close during the storm." - I might also be missing something, but this seems like something that should happen during a hurricane. (On the other hand, it would be noteworthy if bars typically stayed open during hurricanes there, or if no other businesses were ordered to close).
Impact:
  • Table: If the sources give differing amounts, would it be possible to include the ranges of damage estimates in the "Damage (USD)" column, rather than just a single damage estimate? For example, in the "Jamaica" row, the NOAA source gives an estimate of $31.7 million and the ODPEM source gives an estimate of $34.5 million. The table currently only mentions the latter figure, but the range of damage estimates is actually $31.7–34.5 million.
Impact - Haiti:
  • "Approximately 15,000 people were directly affected by the hurricane" - I think this might benefit from a little clarification, since anyone in the path of the hurricane is likely to be "directly affected" in some way. I assume that this wording means that 15,000 people were displaced or otherwise inconvenienced, if not injured or killed?
  • Ugh, I think and debate whether to include this every single time I see the "affected". And it's probably some combination of people who evacuated, or had power outages, or were otherwise negatively affected by the storm. And since I don't know for sure, I removed that sentence. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:43, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Impact - Jamaica:
  • Para 1: "most power outages were restored within six days" - Power, not power outages, was restored within six days. I know this wasn't your intention, but this wording makes it sound like they got power again, only to experience outages after six days. I'd go with something like "most power outages were resolved within six days".
More later. – Epicgenius (talk) 02:30, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Impact - Cuba:
  • Para 1: "just before the eye passed over the area, and the anemometer was destroyed" - The comma is not strictly necessary if the anemometer was destroyed just before the eye passed over the area, which I assume is the case.
  • Para 1: "The hurricane dropped torrential rainfall" - Is it typical to say "dropped ... rainfall"? Usually I hear "caused ... rainfall".
  • Para 2: "Dennis also damaged 360 schools in the province, including 29 were destroyed and in need to be rebuilt" - Not only is there a missing word (the word "that" is needed after "29"), but "in need to be" sounds a bit strange. I'd say "29 that were destroyed and needed to be rebuilt".
  • Para 2: "almost 27,000 hectares (67,000 acres) of agriculture land was destroyed" - Shouldn't this be "...land were destroyed" since "hectares" is plural?
  • Para 3: "power was halted nationwide, which began to be restored on July 11" - I'd say "power was halted nationwide and began to be restored on July 11". The power halts were not the thing that was being restored; it was the power that was being restored.
Impact - United States:
  • Para 1: "Across southern Florida from Tampa southward to the Keys, Dennis left about 439,600 people without power, while another 322,275 people along the Florida panhandle lost power" - The sentence structure makes it sound like the panhandle is part of southern Florida, which it isn't. I think this should be recast as "Across southern Florida from Tampa southward to the Keys, Dennis left about 439,600 people without power, while across the Florida panhandle, another 322,275 people lost power".
  • Para 2: "Damage in the Florida Keys totaled US$6.8 million, mostly related to roofing, electric, and landscaping" - There is probably a missing word after "electric". Is this talking about electrical service? Electrical equipment? Or just power in general?
  • Para 2: "for three years the navy ship was upside-down" - If the ship had been upside down for 3 years prior to Dennis, then this should be "for three years the navy ship had been upside-down".
  • Para 3: "which struck southern Alabama ten months earlier" - This should be "which had struck...", to be parallel with the phrasing "were still recovering", which is used earlier in the sentence.
Impact - Rest of the Gulf Coast:
  • Para 1: "the USS Alabama in Mobile Bay" - The name "Alabama" should be italicized, as is conventional for names of ships.
  • Para 2: "Slick roads led to a traffic death in Jasper County.[105] Strong winds damaged a church in Calhoun County.[106]" - Both of these sentences are relatively short, and they should probably be combined, either with one another or with other sentences.
Impact - Other areas:
  • Para 1: "Within five days of Dennis's landfall, the structure was refloated and taken to Texas to be repaired, as the connecting pipes on the ocean floor were also repaired." - In the phrase "as the connecting pipes", I would change "as" to "and", because these two things just happened to take place at the same time, rather than this being a cause-and-effect relationship.
  • Para 2: "About 55,000 people statewide lost power in the Atlanta area" - "Statewide" might not be necessary here (as the Atlanta area is entirely in Georgia), unless some of these 55,000 people who lost power lived outside the Atlanta area.
More later. – Epicgenius (talk) 15:41, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Aftermath:
  • Para 2: "The International Red Cross (IFRC) provided immediate funds of 250,000 Swiss francs (US$192,000)" - By "immediate funds", is this as opposed to funds disbursed later? Or is this sentence implying that the IFRC provided these funds immediately?
  • Para 3: "After the Rio Grande bridge was damaged, a previously defunct railway bridge was reopened to enable travel on July 30" - I'd say "was reopened on July 30 to enable travel", since it was the reopening that happened on July 30.
  • Para 3: "The Leader of the Opposition party" - This raises a few questions. Do we know who this was? If not, do we at least know which party this was? And if we don't even know which party it is, then should "leader" and "opposition" even be capitalized? (This is a fairly minor nitpick, I admit.)
  • Para 3: "However, in combination with the effects of a drought early in 2005, inflation values required adjustment upwards from 9% to 14.3%." - Do you mean that the inflation rate increased?
  • Para 4: "nearly all of the power outages were restored by July 19" - Like I said above, the power outages were not the thing that was being restored; it was the power that was being restored.
    A force of 3,500 electricians restored nearly all of the power lines were restored by July 19, or 11 days after the hurricane struck." - done. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 04:21, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Para 5: "Due to storm damage across the southeastern United states" - "United States" is always capitalized when talking about the country. If not, then this should be "southeastern U.S. states".
  • Para 5: "visited by more than 20,000 states residents" - This should be "state residents" or even just "residents". The wording "states residents" makes it seem like you're missing an apostrophe, which is not the case.
  • Para 5: In one sentence you capitalize Florida Panhandle, and in another you lowercase Florida panhandle. I would change this for consistency, as the rest of the article uses the lowercase version.
That's it for me. Overall, this is a pretty high-quality article IMO. Though it may be long, I don't feel that it's overly detailed or excessive. – Epicgenius (talk) 01:16, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Epicgenius (talk · contribs), lemme know if I missed anything! ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 04:21, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nah, I don't have any more comments. I support this FAC. – Epicgenius (talk) 05:09, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note

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This has been open for three weeks and has yet to pick up a support. Unless it attracts considerable movement towards a consensus to promote over the next four or five days I am afraid that it is liable to be archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 00:16, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, I totally get that, thanks Gog the Mild (talk · contribs). ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:05, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Generalissima

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Hi Generalissima, just a gentle nudge. :-) Gog the Mild (talk) 10:59, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK source review time for real.

Sources are generally consistently formatted, although you seem to be inconsistent on wikilinking the sources themselves: National Hurricane Center and International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are WLed, but National Climatic Data Center, World Food Programme, Federal Emergency Management Agency etc. are not. I'd go through each of your cites and see if you can wikilink the publisher (or alternatively remove the wikilinks from the ones that currently have it.)

  • It might be good to group together the National Climatic Data Center reports like what you did on Hurricane Cindy (2005) to reduce the sheer quantity of citations there.
  • The paper Response of sea surface properties to Hurricane Dennis has two authors, but you only list one.
  • Sources broadly follow previous hurricane FAs, and seem appropriate for the subject. I looked through journal articles, and the ones you don't cite appear too niche and specific to be of much use here. Seems to be pretty comprehensive sourcing.

Hurricanehink Looks like the formatting issue with the linking is the only outstanding issue here. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 17:30, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Generalissima! I cut down on the overlinking, and I added links to the ones that were missing. I also grouped together the references where possible, and added the other author's name, I totally missed it because it was foreign. Thanks for catching that. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 03:34, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support on source review. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 03:44, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thuiop

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  • The path around Cuba was a bit unclear to me when reading the text. "Briefly weakening due to interaction with land, Dennis quickly regained its strength" was a bit unclear, I think there should be more emphasis on the fact that the hurricane only traversed a small peninsula before being over the sea again, which I believe is why it strengthened again. (the picture does make it clearer)
  • Great point. It was only over land briefly, so I specified this as such:
  • "The powerful storm soon struck the western tip of Granma Province, Cuba, as a Category 4 hurricane early on July 8. Over land, Dennis weakened to Category 3 intensity, but it quickly moved back over water and regained its strength. "
  • "The hurricane reached Category 4 strength for the third time" When was the second time ?
  • The term "circulation", which I am not familiar with, is employed 2 times. Is there an appropriate page to link to? Atmospheric circulation seems to be on a broader scale.
  • The acronym CNM is given but not reused (although I do not have strong feelings about removing it)
  • Not sure if you missed it, but it's under Haiti as - "On July 6, Haiti's National Meteorological Center (Centre National de Météorologie; CNM)". Listing the French title right away in the English Wikipedia isn't too useful when the translated title of "National Meteorological Center" helps put it into better context, I believe.
  • In the Haiti part of the impact, the beginning mentions the winds on July 6. Did it continue the next day, was it stronger?
  • Storms typically last for a long time. They are large systems, and sometimes they have residual effects like rainfall lasting a day or two. Unfortunately we don't have the exact time when the effects stopped, but it's logical there were still rain storms on the 7th or 8th, since it was still fairly close to Haiti by that time. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 00:05, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are several red links in the Jamaica section.
  • "The eye of Dennis remained over Cuba for about nine hours" Is that for the second landfall only? This should be clearer as we talk about the first landfall right before.
  • "Throughout the southeastern United States, Hurricane Dennis left 15 fatalities" Shouldn't it be 16, as in the lead?
  • Hah, 17 actually! I must have miscounted the total number of deaths. Looks like it was 90 overall. This is common with hurricanes, having inconsistent figures on the total number of deaths, due to varying sources, but the table and that section show all of the sources and my homework. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 00:05, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The IFRC acronym is used without being defined.
  • "In a July 26 speech, Castro announced the beginning of the Energy Revolution" The relevance of this to Hurricane Dennis is not immediately obvious.

Overall a very complete article, good job. Thuiop (talk) 15:09, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I believe I replied to everything, Thuiop (talk · contribs). ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 00:05, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am happy to support following those changes. Thuiop (talk) 19:51, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Graham Beards

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  • Isn't the Lead rather long?
  • It describes the different aspects of the storm, such as its history, its impacts in the Caribbean, and its impacts in the United States. I could trim part of the aftermath from the lead, if you feel that's redundant, but I liked having a specific paragraph for the aftermath. Lemme know what you think, Graham Beards (talk · contribs). ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:13, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can something be done about all those repetitive "with" phrases For example, "with the heaviest amounting to 24.54 in (623 mm) in Mavis Bank" "with almost 27,000 hectares (67,000 acres) of agricultural land being destroyed in the provinces of Cienfuegos and Granma." "with a power worker killed while restoring electricity in Alabama." "with a storm surge ranging from 3–6.5 ft (0.91–1.98 m)".
  • There are disjointed snippets which spoil the flow of the prose e,g, "River flooding in Saint Mary Parish forced more than 500 people from their homes in Annotto Bay. Eight people required rescue in Saint Catherine Parish. A sink hole in Halse Hall engulfed 35 homes."

In general, I think the article is too long and would benefit from some cuts. Graham Beards (talk) 13:19, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The article is only 6,188 words - could you identify where you feel it is too lengthy? I wanted to make sure the article was comprehensive, so not to fail the FA criteria. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:13, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I know the FA criteria and I think the Lead should be around half the length. I am open to discussion. :-) Graham Beards (talk) 19:54, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yea, the aftermath isn't really needed, that's pretty small compared to what the storm actually did, so I mostly removed the fourth paragraph, and just added the bit about its retirement to the first sentence. How's that feel? I know you said half, so instead it's two-thirds compared to before ;) I can trim further if you prefer though. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:57, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How about dumping "Dennis spawned ten weak tornadoes in the United States"? Graham Beards (talk) 20:30, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Good call, it wasn't important in the grand scheme of things. This is why I appreciate the viewpoint of people who don't typically edit weather articles. Not every piece of information is equally important, so the fresh set of eyes is appreciated, Graham Beards (talk · contribs). ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:11, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I made a couple of edits for your consideration. Can we do something with the repetitive "due to"s here: "In Georgia, one person drowned due to the hurricane. Due to the extensive damage, the name Dennis was retired by the World Meteorological Organization." Graham Beards (talk) 11:16, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the Georgia part, it's not necessary and it's another easy way of trimming down the lead. I appreciate your edits, they all look good to me, Graham Beards (talk · contribs). ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 04:28, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am happy to add my support, unless any unsurmountable issues come to light. Well done. On an unrelated note, where other than from Wikipedia would you find such a detailed account of an old meteorological event? This is what our project is all about. Graham Beards (talk) 20:43, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Dudley

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  • Your roundings are often too exact, e.g. 43.0 in (1,092 mm) and 3–6.5 ft (0.91–1.98 m). This is false precision.
  • "Officials removed traffic signal heads and secured to prevent damage on roads near Pensacola." Secured what?
  • "World Concern director Kelly Miller reported the agricultural effects as "staggering".[52] Widespread agricultural losses took place". This is saying the same thing twice in different words.
  • "In nearby Grand-Goâve, a bridge collapsed after numerous people gathered atop it to view flood waters." I think you should say what - if any - deaths and injuries this caused.
  • "Dennis also disrupted the nation's agriculture industry, after ruining about 360,000 tons of citrus fruit, either knocked off and or uprooted from the ground." I would delete "after". Also, it must have been the plants rather than the fruit which was uprooted.
This is still wordy and repetitive. Maybe replace "Dennis also disrupted the nation's agriculture industry, ruining about 360,000 tons of citrus fruit, either knocked off and or uprooted from the ground. Dennis also destroyed 11,000 hectares (27,000 acres) of bananas, and killed about 73,000 livestock birds." with "Dennis also disrupted the nation's agriculture industry, ruining about 360,000 tons of citrus fruit, destroying 11,000 hectares (27,000 acres) of bananas, and killing about 73,000 livestock birds."
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