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Talk:1893 San Roque hurricane/GA1

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GA Review

[edit]

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Usernameunique (talk · contribs) 02:26, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Infobox
  • What's "Hurricane Three"?
  • Any reason the image from "Meteorological history" isn't used here instead? It's significantly easier to read, and gives a better picture of the whole storm.
  • Convention, mostly. It's been universal WPTC practice to place the track map in the meteo. hist. section and show a "snapshot" illustration of the storm in the infobox: a satellite image for modern systems and a drawn weather map before that.

Lead

  • Its informal name in Puerto Rico — The same comment is made below, but it's unclear why the informal name from one region is being used over another.
  • This was the first tropical cyclone event in Puerto Rico for which warning flags were used in conveying the level of danger to the public. — Is this really lead worthy? (It's also shortly after another sentence beginning "This was the...")
  • Four sentences on Dorcas and Etta Stewart seems excessive.
  • The lead references August 22, then moves back to August 21.
  • In general, the lead seems somewhat long and could probably be trimmed some more.
  • It's certainly beefy, but given the breadth of impact (deep tropics, US, a large swath of Canada, plus multiple maritime tragedies) I think it's appropriate. MOS:LEDELENGTH prescribes 2-3 paragraphs for articles of this size, so two substantial paras would be within reason. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Meteorological history
  • the storm system was noted north of Hispaniola. — Who noted it?
  • continued eastward into the North Atlantic for several more days — Until what? Presumably, it dissipated.
  • That's a good guess (it's the same one I'd make!), although sources don't specify. 19th century storm histories are very much incomplete; more often than not, the end of the track represents the end of reporting rather than the end of the storm itself. I could add, "...until its log in the database terminates on x day", although I worry that requires more disclaimers and modifiers than would be reasonable. Any thoughts? – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Something like "No further remnants of the storm were recorded after DATE" could work, although I'll leave this up to you; if you don't think it's worth adding something, no worries.

Puerto Rico

  • Any way to break up this long section with one or more subsections?
  • I've thought about this for a bit and am unable to come up with a strong solution. The impacts in PR are fairly uniform, and given it's a pretty small island, there aren't many distinct geographical regions upon which to base subheaders. Once again, suggestions would be greatly appreciated. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • leaving many residents unable to reach their homes for the night — Any word on where they spent the night?
  • Many gas lanterns were broken and an electric light lost its power supply. — What electric light?
  • numerous head of cattle killed. — Is this correct? Numerous heads of cattle? Numerous cattle?
  • Sea baths along the shore were destroyed. — Seems somewhat out of place in a paragraph about damage to ships.
  • Frankly, I came up empty when I tried tying it to any other currency. I consulted with a few other natural disaster editors who all seemed to agree that posting the value with no comparison was better than not at all, so I'm not sure what to think.
  • The last paragraph starts out by discussing economic loss, then jumps to the etymology of the storm's name, then discusses retrospective views of the storm, and then pivots to its fatalities.
United States
  • A closer pass to New England the following day — pass by New England?
  • The hurricane was described as — Who described it?
  • in Oak Bluffs (then called Cottage City) on Martha's Vineyard, "without a precedent during the summer season". — Sentence fragment.
  • the driving rain forced inside east-facing walls — forced its way inside?
  • The above four have been fixed as suggested.
  • Is the Mary Lizzie deserving of a red link? Seems significant given the losses.
  • One man held to floating debris — Assuming he is the one survivor from the Mary Lizzie, I would make this clear.
  • His yacht was narrowly saved — What was the name of the yacht?
  • before coastal installations began to crumble — What sorts of installations?
  • "Very great" damage — Whose words? It's a pretty bland quote, so unless the speaker is significant, I'm not sure you need to quote the words at all.
  • "tossed like cockle shells" — Whose words?
  • A yacht race set for August 21 around Newport was postponed — Until when?
Atlantic Canada
  • Why not just title this section "Canada"? "United States" isn't "Eastern United States".
  • "one of the most notorious marine storms in the history of Nova Scotia" — According to?
  • There, the storm came to be known as the "Second Great August Gale" — Why does the article title favor the San Roque name, if there are actually two sobriquets?
  • to the point of breaking the ship apart. — To the point of, or it actually did so?
  • Is Shut-In Island red-link worthy?
  • Almost certainly not. As far as I can tell it's merely a patch of shallow reef that sometimes peeks above the waves. (There's a more substantial island of the same name a few miles to the SW, so bear this in mind if seeking sources.) – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • "dashed to pieces" — Whose words?
  • All crew-members and passengers, totaling 24 people, were killed — By drowning? Also, given the heavy losses, are the ships worth red linking?
  • I'm not sure if the information is available regarding cause of death. I recall that newspaper articles mentioned evidence of traumatic blows to some of the deceased bodies, but I'm not prepared to speculate.
  • "sacrificed his own life in his endeavour to save those on board the two vessels". — Inline citation needed following a quotation.
  • ...he met death at the post of duty." — Ditto.
  • whisked ashore — Not sure of the word choice here. "Whisked" doesn't conjure up an image of boats being smashed about, which seems to be what actually happened.
  • Yeah... there are a few words and phrases that we sadly end up using many, many times in these articles ("damage", "blown ashore") and sometimes I get a little too creative trying to get around that. Made more standard. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • one of them a local politician — What was his office?

Overall

  • Juliancolton, this looks pretty good. Has anything been said about the storm subsequently? For instance, given its destructiveness in some places, did it make some sort of a cultural impact such that talk of the storm continued for some time, and that would warrant a section on the subsequent history? --Usernameunique (talk) 04:21, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, my initial fixes have been applied and responses posted where further action may be required. Your suggestions and edits (especially the arduous task of remedying my over-linking) have really helped improve the article. Thank you! Respectfully, I must object to two of your changes. First, per WP:SHE4SHIPS, both "she" and "it" are acceptable pronouns, as long as they are used consistently within the article. I'm increasingly opposed to the use of feminine pronouns when discussing things that have no gender, so I'd like to restore the gender-neutral pronouns if possible. Also, while I appreciate the reason for removing the time zones in the lede, I feel they were necessary in these cases. 00:00 UTC on August 17 was still the evening of August 16 local time, so that could lead to some confusion (and, where multiple time zones are involved, it's preferable to use universal time). – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Juliancolton, this looks good. The lead still seems a bit on the long side, but at least reads naturally. Likewise, the sections on Puerto Rico, the United States, and Canada could all seemingly use some subsections, but I agree with you that I'm not sure where they would logically go. In any event, those are small concerns in what is clearly a good article, so I'm passing it now. --Usernameunique (talk) 01:39, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]