Hurricane Katrina

Self-nom on behalf of Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones. This is perhaps one of the WikiProject's most important articles, as it is evidently a household name inside the United States now. The article itself may be a historical reference for future works about the subject; its edit history is one of the longest in Wikipedia, and it records the chaos that occured on those days.

However, the article in its current form is everything but chaotic: it fully represents the best of Wikipedia, as required by the featured article criteria. It is thoroughly referenced, and is, to the best of my knowledge, neutral. The article also balances the need for comprehensiveness with Summary style, as it spearheads a category with more than 100 articles. The article has finally become stable, as time has passed, and does not neglect any side of the storm or its aftermath. As a result, it's time to put it under consideration for Featured status. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 02:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

NOTE: As of 15 June this article has 42KB of prose.
Other than that, looks like an excellent article. Kirill Lokshin 03:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'll play around with the template to see if I can make it look all right. However, the WP:MOS is a bit confusing about the see also links; one subpage says to weave them in, another says to use the templates. I'll fix the FEMA link too. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 03:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, those two things are fixed (as ((further)) did the trick). The Guide to layout says that the seealso links should be at the top of the section, so I'm not entirely sure as to what to do there. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 03:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I always thought see-also links went at the bottom of the relevant text, seeing as they were supposed to be additional reading; but it's a trivial issue in any case. Support from me. Kirill Lokshin 03:32, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to see the opening paragraph rewritten.

RandomP 01:37, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The titles of the two main sections deserve looking at. "Impact," for the place-by-place, hard fact detailing of Katrina's physical force; "Aftermath" for what happened next. The only "impact" described in that section is the physical impact; social impact is almost nowhere to be found. Perhaps one would find it in the "aftermath" section — but the very word betrays that: "aftermath" is, as well, a centrally physical word. How about "Consequences"?
The main problem is the lack of analysis. Why is Katrina significant? Twenty, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand years from now — will anyone care about Katrina? (Probably not about the loss of breeding grounds for redhead ducks. Certainly not about the August 26 "F1 tornado" that formed from Katrina's "outer rainband.") What did Katrina mean? Why did it matter?
You see, it's relatively easy to find out the Gulf of Mexico shut-in oil production before and after Katrina, or how many billions in aid were given by such and such a country. It's harder to create a balanced discussion of differing viewpoints in regards to, say, the (at the very least, perceived) inadequacy of the government response to Hurricane Katrina.
Case in point — our section on exactly that. Four paragraphs — that's it. The first paragraph is a throwaway, posing as a lead but instead merely explaining terms that don't need to be explained. Half of the second paragraph is a prelude to whatever criticisms there were; the rest of it, the meat of the section, dances around the issue. "Harsh criticism" is mentioned, but no mention of what that criticism was, or examples, or links to examples, or any evidence for that criticism is presented. The hard fact of Michael Brown being recalled is mentioned — with news story to back it up — but why he was recalled is not mentioned. Brown's resignation is listed, along with a hazy mention of "having received praise from ... Bush" — what, no "heckuva job, Brownie"? Seriously! A key statement by the President of the United States, clearly political speechifying BS later exposed as exactly that and therefore ridiculed across the country, and all we get is "in spite of having received praise"? The third paragraph is short, talks about "raising questions" without actually saying what questions were raised, and includes a punctuation mistake. The fourth paragraph concerns something slightly after-the-fact and has little connection (except in association) to the rest of the section. The picture accompanying the section is relevant — except that it isn't mentioned in the least in the article. Another juicy quote ("George Bush doesn't care about black people") isn't present — but, of course, it couldn't be, because there's no discussion of Katrina's perceived exposure of race relations in this article. The whole New Orleans/urban poor/the Superdome/etc. thing is all but nonexistent in this article.
This is our section on "Criticism of government response"?! Of course, a few sections above, we have a decent section on "Government reponse," detailing, seemingly approvingly — anyway, without disapproval, which is key — all the money, etc. the government gave. Why the two sections aren't combined I don't know. Of course, right after this comes the "Media response" section, which may be even worse. No mention of Anderson Cooper (much less the cult of Anderson Cooper). No mention of reports of people firing on helicopters, etc. No mention of (possibly exaggerated?) media reports of looting. (There's a brief mention of the same in the looting section above, but no analysis is made.) There's a brief mention of the New Orleans Convention Center, but no context whatsoever is presented, nor is any mention made of the Superdome, except stranded in single sentences in different places across the article, unorganized, ungathered.
In short, we need to ask ourselves what Katrina meant and why it matters. To be sure, asking such questions — and, particularly, answering them — delves deeply into point of view. That's why we need to present different points of view and different ideas — and balance them, order them, and present them. It's not rocket science, but it is hard work. For a few days in August, the US looked like a third world country. Does anyone reading the article gather that? zafiroblue05 | Talk 01:57, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(P.S. A small quibble: the Chandeleur Islands picture should be rearranged so that the "before" is on the left, as is customary in the English language. A larger quibble: why is there exactly — only — one picture of a human victim in this most human of tragedies?)
Why did Katrina matter? It is something Wikipedia cannot answer. Why? It is something that is the job of scholars, and our No original research policy explicitly disallows it:
Original research is a term used on Wikipedia to refer to material added to articles by Wikipedia editors that has not been published already by a reputable source. In this context it means unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, and ideas; or any new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts, or arguments that appears to advance a position or, in the words of Wikipedia's co-founder Jimbo Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation." (emphasis mine)
Also, the first line in the Criticism of Government response says:
Main article: Criticism of government response to Hurricane Katrina
It is impossible to talk about such a subject in the main article in a way that does not shatter the Article size guideline. We strived to achieve the preferred summary style, which is truly a balancing act.
No mention of looting? Did you try going into the subarticles prominently detailed in the article? It certainly is there. Titoxd(?!?) 02:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's exactly the problem. Subarticles are subarticles. This nomination is to feature Hurricane Katrina, not the subarticles. No, I didn't read each subarticle top to bottom, as I did the main one. They're different, separate articles. My criticisms may well be better developed in certain other articles, but in no way is the important information "prominently detailed" in the article. You realize we have more words on the mere preparations for the storm than the criticism of government response and media involvent combined? Why do we include vast sections on minute details of the storm itself while neglecting its significance? Why does the reader have to go to subarticles (linked at the bottom of the page) to get to the important stuff but is presented right at the top, pages and pages worth of what is near trivialities in respect to the scope of the storm? As to the original research, a discussion of significance — different viewpoints, different ideas, properly attributed and supported — does not mean putting one's own ideas into the article. zafiroblue05 | Talk 03:26, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the strong object. Certainly, we could go into more detail, but that's the whole purpose of the article size attribute and the MANY sub-articles to this topic. The sub-articles support this article very well, and if we put every single minute detail about the criticisms to the government response into this article, we'd have an article that would be way too long that no one would read. There's also an overwhelming amount of information about this topic as well, but a lot of it is POV blogs, conspiracy theories, and extreme liberal or conservative views on the topic, which is best left out of the encyclopedia. It's best to produce an article in the middle, with little conspiracy theory talk and extreme views. Dr. Cash 18:49, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Certainly we could go into more detail," you say. Tell me this: why do we go into such fine details with regard to the physical impact of the storm, but the social impact - the media, the criticism of the government, the race relations; that is, what is most significant about the topic - is relegated to subarticles? Answer: because it's so much easier to document statistics than analyze, organize, and clearly and NPOV-ly present difficult social issues. But the fact that a proper article on this topic would be difficult to write does not excuse the failings of this current article. In short, this is not Wikipedia's best work; not even close. So it shouldn't be featured: period, the end. zafiroblue05 | Talk 21:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually the most important section in the article is the "Storm history" - that is the storm itself after all. And its not relegated to subarticles, its expanded in subarticles (the physical impact is also expanded in the subarticles, particularly the New Orleans info). Some specific detail about physical damage may be slightly excessive (the F1 tornado for example) but I think that is more significant to the story of Katrina than the fact there were racism allegations in photos showing looting/collecting stuff. The most important thing to cover in this article is the storm itself, the title is "Hurricane Katrina" after all not "Social effects of Hurricane Katrina"... The physical impact is an aspect of the storm, the social aspect is more an aspect of American society than the storm IMO.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:09, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This article isn't titled "Storm history of Hurricane Katrina" either. It comes down to which subarticle, which section, you want to give focus to. Currently, the vast majority of the article centers of the storm history, while the larger significance is largely ignored. I think that's ridiculous, and that's why I continue to object. zafiroblue05 | Talk 06:41, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it isn't that article either and the article doesn't give much weight to that section (its expanded in a subarticle, like everything else). What I meant by saying the history is the most important section is that without that section the article is "Effects of Katrina" not "Katrina". I think the article does a good balancing job between physical and social impact. IMO $5 million of damage is more pertinent to the story of the storm itself than the cult of a journalist.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:53, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I did not read the subarticles, because the article nominated is not the subarticles. Those are separate articles. As to it covering everything anyone would want to know about the subject, well, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. :) zafiroblue05 | Talk 06:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The before/after shot has been fixed (the NASA source image was the "wrong" way round). Vote-stacking shouldn't really be an issue if FAC is working correctly, its certainly not the intent of the editors of the article or the wikiproject to railroad this (or any other article) through; its a lot of "me too" voting when that happens.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:40, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I count 17 supporters from outside the WikiProject, so "railroading" is probably the least accurate way to describe it. Everything else has been fixed, and all images now are 250px (with the exception of the initial image, which should be small to avoid getting a narrow column of text in the Storm history section, and another image which is only 240 px originally).Titoxd(?!?) 21:43, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So, you'd have about 14 votes from members of the wikiproject. This really does skew the discussion significantly - a pile of supports like that will certainly make people reading the nomination think there can't be very much at all wrong with the article and may dissuade oppose comments. Given that this is a nomination 'on behalf of' the wikiproject, members of the wikiproject really should not be voting. At the very least they should be declaring that they are members of the project.
The article still has one random image on the left. It's something of a matter of personal choice but I've always thought alternating left-right looks way better than all images on the right. Worldtraveller 20:32, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Note, I've refrained from voting here, and I've edited the article significantly. The wikiproject sup's are from people who joined the project as "interested in hurricanes" and as such are voting on their interests, certainly not encouraged to vote support by the rest of the project. That's no different than any other "popular" subject, the difference is the 'cane-fans tend to be in the wikiproject. I've moved the images (except for the storm track, that's opposite the Katrina template) to the right hand side.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:08, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I think the very least that can be done is that they should declare that they are members of the wikiproject. It does look suspicious when half the votes are coming from people in whose name the nomination is supposedly made, but they aren't being forthcoming with that information.
As for my objection, I apologise if I'm being a pain in the arse but I do believe that looking good is an important thing. The three tables of different widths that start the article really don't look very good. Could they be made the same width, or moved to different parts of the article? Worldtraveller 14:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I changed from using the Katrina template to just using its content (stops the repetition of Hurricane Katrina 2005 Atlantic hurricane season and two similar pictures). I'm not convinced of the point to the intensity table myself but I don't fancy a lame edit war over it.--Nilfanion (talk) 16:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  1. I'm not sure it's "stable" enuf to be an FA. For example, I am assuming (well, on some levels more 'hoping') that the still changing circumstances are the reason that it is in such sharp disagreement with New Orleans, Louisiana regarding the early 2006 city population (100K vs 200K).
  2. This partially goes a bit beyond this article to FAC process, but how can we at WP:FAC really determine how complete an article is when the topic is so big and complicated? Due to a slow day at work last week I was fortunate enuf to be able to spend 2-3 hours reading much of the 520-page Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina[3], and some things don't appear to be covered in the article, or it's sub-articles. Probably one of the most important being that Chertoff named Brown PFO even tho' Brown had no PFO training, yet there were other PFO-trained candidates available: "Finding: The Secretary should have designated the Principal Federal Official on Saturday, two days prior to landfall, from the roster of PFOs who had successfully completed the required PFO training, unlike FEMA Director Michael Brown. Considerable confusion was caused by the Secretary’s PFO decisions".
  3. A related point: Overall, the article seems heavily influenced by the US media pack-mentality to blame Brown more than Chertoff (despite the fact that searching the Final Report file for "the secretary should have" gets 9 hits (4 actual points, all in various "Findings"), versus zero for "brown should have" or "director should have"), while the media in turn (IMHO) was heavily influenced by Bush administration actions designed to make Brown a scapegoat (despite being in contrast to their words to the contrary).
  4. I wish I could remember what I read where in the various sub/related articles, but several need good copyediting, and some seem to conflict. For example one says there was 'virtually no wind or rain damage to NO' (blaming all damage on the flooding), while others say there was significant wind damage several states further inland--hard for me to believe NO suffered less wind damage from Katrina than say Kentucky or New York. Niteowlneils 04:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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