Talk:2007 Midwest flooding

United States: Indiana / Ohio Mid‑importance

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Weather: Non-tropical / Floods Mid‑importance

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Minnesota Low‑importance

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Illinois Mid‑importance

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Guild of Copy Editors

This article was copy edited by Unimaginative Username, a member of the Guild of Copy Editors, on 16 October 2007.Guild of Copy EditorsWikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy EditorsTemplate:WikiProject Guild of Copy EditorsGuild of Copy Editors articles

Storm strength?[edit]

I don't doubt that the storm was strong. My school had an hour-or-so lockdown because of it, and the sky was darker than night in the middle of the day. There was a lot of flooding in my neighborhood (Bartlett, Illinois).

A classmate of mine said that it was strong enough to be considered a category 3 hurricane. I wanted to put that in there, but I was pretty sure it wasn't true. Is there anybody that can prove or disprove it, just to be sure? --24.13.71.240 02:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It couldn't "be considered" as a hurricane, because it was not a tropical cyclone. As far as "being strong enough to be" a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, it would have to have had sustained winds of 111 mph or more -- don't think so. Perhaps your friend meant in terms of the degree of river rise compared to the ocean surge caused by hurricanes in coastal areas, or perhaps in terms of damage. But in "strength", not. Regards, Unimaginative Username 03:58, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ohio[edit]

Should the scope of this article be expanded to include Ohio?--Appraiser 13:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. It looks like this article was started before the bad Ohio flooding was reported. There was also flooding in Oklahoma & Texas as well (albeit from a different weather system). They should probably get some mention as well. Gopher backer 14:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As the same weather system produced the Ohio flooding it should be expanded. Perhaps Midwest flooding of 1993 or Midwest flooding (August 1993)? Examples of other regional natural disasters are Great Flood of 1993 and Boundary Waters-Canadian Derecho. Kablammo 14:57, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How about Midwest flooding of 2007?--Appraiser 16:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

we have a winner! I'll change it right now. Gopher backer 16:42, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Great job! (1993?? Where did I get that? Must be incipient Alzheimer's.) Kablammo 19:50, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like the damage estimate for Ohio needs to be updated to $290 million according to the USGS report^[1]. I'm not really sure the proper protocol for editing articles so if someone would be willing to make that change I'd appreciate it! --Peter M. 98.253.155.56 (talk) 21:19, 23 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2009/1094/pdf/ofr20091094_main_text.pdf

Michigan[edit]

What about Michigan? They had a tornado. [1] Williamnilly 21:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Did Michigan get flooding? I haven't heard, but if you know of a source, go ahead and add a section. But if they had other weather phenomena not including a flood, then don't put it in this article (imo). --Appraiser 21:41, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In other weather articles what we've done in this situation is to create a section towards that bottom of the artcile called "Non-flooding events". As a general rule (on the meteorology side) what has been determined is that it makes the most sense to include all events from one storm system in one article, so people don't end up chasing around different articles trying to find info on two things that may have occurred near each other. So for this article, what I would do is create that section, and then put anything on high winds or tornadoes in there. I did something like this for a different aritcle, the Dakota-Minnesota Tornado Outbreak of August 2006. The article itself focuses on a torando outbreak, but there also was a ton of damaging hail that day, so I inlucded that at the bottom. Gopher backer 05:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that if we do it that way we could end up with a really long section because in Illinois alone the damage and tornado reports were spread across the area, and there were dozens. I don't know if any sources are calling it a tornado outbreak but I suspect the NWS will have more to say about it in the coming days, then maybe we can just do a separate article. That's quite a lot of tornadoes and violent weather for August. IvoShandor 19:37, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So far as I know, Michigan doesn't have flooding... Cheers, Corvus coronoides _talk 19:29, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Influence of terrain[edit]

There have been a couple of recent articles on how the topography of the Driftless Area contributes to the flooding.[2] [3] The absence of glacial till means the topsoils and subsoils are thin and less clayey, and less able to retain water. The porous rock underneath also does not retain water, and water flowing into the rock rapidly flows out of springs along the steep slopes in the coulees cut into the area and into the rivers. The volume of water and the steepness of the terrain make for fast-moving and highly-erosive streams (which eat away banks and scour bridge foundations). These characteristics are not limited just to SE Minnesota but also shared with SW Wisconsin and other area which are part of the driftless region. Kablammo 14:29, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have some links or something, this sounds really interesting and may add a bit more context to the article. That way we will have more than just an incident report. This could go a long way toward helping move this article toward GA and eventually FA. IvoShandor 19:38, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Text added to the Minnesota section. The same factors affected Wisconsin, but we would need cites for that. Kablammo 21:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Photos[edit]

I don't know if anyone else has any kind of extensive photo documentation of these events. I have created a gallery of what work I did as far as photos in DeKalb, Illinois. I put 30 pictures on Commons and gave them a page at 2007 Kishwaukee River Flood. What I was interested in seeing though is our combined work, uploading what work we have done across the Midwest and adding it to commons to create a gallery page called Midwest flooding of 2007 that we could link from this article using {{commons}}. Thoughts? IvoShandor 19:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I personally don't have any pictures to add since I live 90+ miles away, but Flickr would be a good place to look to help put something like this together. Here is a link, all of these photos should be okay to use (though they may include stuff not related to this event, so you'd have to check each one) http://flickr.com/search/?q=flood&l=commderiv&s=rec Gopher backer 19:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cool, that looks like a great place to start. I would urge anyone who has photos to chime in here as well. IvoShandor 19:59, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am going to go take some now. Even though it is sunny outside and not dark and gloomy, should get you some nice pics but mine will be more like for the Rock River and for the Stillman Creek.--Kranar drogin 20:01, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ITN[edit]

This article is pretty well-referenced and current. We should take it over to WP:ITN. I have never had any experience with that section of the project so I don't know much about it or its requirements and regulations. IvoShandor 21:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's done by consensus, I have added a suggestion about this article at Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates. IvoShandor 21:38, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, we're on the main page now, In the News section. IvoShandor 01:42, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ohio[edit]

Anyone want to add info about Ottawa, Ohio? The New York Times story I just added as a ref has some info about it, and the web is teeming with it. Any takers? IvoShandor 02:17, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Any Wikipedians in the Buckeye State with photos of the devastation? IvoShandor 02:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indiana[edit]

I live a stone's throw from 80/94 in Highland Indiana. A small section of U.S. 41 has been closed August 24-26 and 80/94 is still closed as of the 26th. I don't have a source yet.

Can you get a dramatic picture that adds value to the text?--Appraiser 14:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to check and see if it is trashed as of 2PM today--Tuoder 19:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If it is still closed we will likely be able to find something in one of the newspaper stories about it. And hooray if you get pictures. We have quite a bit from Illinois on commons, we should look to creating a category there to match the article and set up a nice gallery there. IvoShandor 19:17, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

by the tiem I got out there, it was jsut the regular construction that has been out there for a while. Sorry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tuoder (talk • contribs) 06:35, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

Sequence[edit]

The sequence of sections is haphazard. I'd suggest three possibilities - order sections based on:

decreasing severity
west to east (roughly chronological)
alphabetical order of states

What do others think?--Appraiser 14:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the easiest would be to simply go alpha order. The first option would continue to change as more and more damage is assessed, west to east is another possibility, but I am thinking that overall alpha order would be the best way to go.--Kranar drogin 14:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would go alphabetical now too, I was wondering about this when I came upon the article. I think once the entire event is over with, we may be able to come up with a way that doesn't require so many separate sections, especially if some of the states have minimal damage or flood situations. IvoShandor 19:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pictures[edit]

Good pictures of the flooding. [4] -Ravedave 20:07, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, those are copyrighted, we can't use them here. Maybe under fair use but they're are probably free alternatives we could come up with so I don't think the rationale would stand here. IvoShandor 20:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I should be more clear, non-free copyright, they are. IvoShandor 20:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I was in a hurry, the point was that is what we should shoot for as far as pics in the article. -Ravedave 00:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. Those are really high quality pics. If anyone has something that good I hope they upload it. I am kind of limited because of my camera but I did manage to get a bunch in DeKalb, Illinois. IvoShandor 02:04, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Illinois[edit]

More could be added on the Fox River (i.e. Fox Lake, McHenry, Dundee, etc.) and the Des Plaines River (i.e. Gurnee, Des Plaines, etc.). The Chicago Tribune did a whole front-page feature article about the Fox River flooding in McHenry on Sunday. Abog 20:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I saw the article, just haven't gotten to it myself, as I appear to be the only one updating the article in the Illinois section. Have at it if you would like. IvoShandor 20:48, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was trying to get some video up of the dam in Oregon Image:Oregon, Illinois Oregon Dam 00.ogg, but the sound warped in the conversion. I will have to try and figure something else out I guess. Can't believe they won't just take .mpegs.--Kranar drogin 23:20, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can't believe there aren't any decent avi or mpeg -> ogg converters. The format is fine, it's just that the tool options are poor. What did you use? I gave up after 2 hrs of trying to convert a bog standard AVI. -Ravedave 00:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The flooding affected Kendall County too. A road was flooded to the top of the bridge in Bristol. I have pictures of it.Jacluv 07:44, 12 January 2008 (UTC)(user:jacluv)[reply]

fatalities by state[edit]

Can we come up with a list of fatalities by state? I've noticed that the figure in the lead (26) is not entirely accurate, as that also includes Oklahoma and Texas. The flooding in those states is out of scope for this article, since it was previously covered in Tropical Storm Erin (2007). (Right after this event took place I asked on that talk page if this flooding should be included in that article, and the answer was "no" since it was not directly part of that system) So anyway, I think what should at least be done here is to clarify how many fatalities there were in the 6 states covered in this article, when then maybe a mention of the total nubmer of deaths between the two systems. Thoughts? Gopher backer 14:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what to say about the number of fatalities. Every news report I've seen the last few days say that 18 deaths have been attributed to the flooding. I know tha the 7 in Minnesota is accurate, but if there are others in the affected states that could provide an accurate (and sourced) number that would be very helpful. Gopher backer 15:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am on a semi-wikibreak, but when I get a shot, I intend to do a thorough update of the article in the Illinois section. IvoShandor 06:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FEMA's response[edit]

I removed a sentence about FEMA's slow response. As it was, it sounded like original research. A sentence that states something like, "FEMA workers began arriving on August ??, 10 days after the worst of the flooding," with a valid citation would be a verifiable fact.--Appraiser 14:32, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Final casualties and GA nom?[edit]

Still here I am. I have tentative plans to tackle the Illinois and Ohio sections, with full updates. Information is pretty stable now regarding these floods and I think we can finish this article off and submit it to GA soon, as a true collaboration, Wikipedia at its best. IvoShandor 00:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still wondering about the fatalities. Published reported listed 18, but on a state by state check we could only find 14. I haven't checked for a while though. Gopher backer 00:03, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And I started it all! :) I know, someone else would've started it anyway. It just makes me feel special that I was able to start something that went on to greatness (and ultimately, it turns out, with very little of my own help). Thanks to everyone who contributed! Williamnilly 20:23, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Where are we on fatalities? This may meet the GA criteria, even if it doesn't as is, it will probably just be put on hold so we can make the fixes. I am thinking of nominating it soon. I have never seen collaboration work so well on Wikipedia, this is a wonderful piece that many editors put time into. IvoShandor 06:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was never able to figure out where the 18 fatalities were. Many media outlets were saying 18, but none were explaining where the number came from. I suspect they were all more like lemmings than investigative reporters. I agree that the article is a good example of a collaboration. --Appraiser 12:52, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So then, a state by state check still reveals 14, while national media outlets reported 18? If we can't get them to agree, perhaps we should just note it in the article, "these sources say this, these sources say that," kinda thing. IvoShandor 12:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As an intermediate step, I've upped the class to B from Start. It more than fulfills the criteria for a B class article. Thegreatdr 16:40, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ohio expansion[edit]

I think maybe the article could use a bit more on Ohio, especially Ottawa, I am pretty sure the flooding in Ohio was extensive and severe, the section's length doesn't reflect this, I don't think. Ohio was one place that this article, unfortunately, didn't see much collaboration from, ah well, can't have everything. IvoShandor 13:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have added some, including a photo from Ottawa I found on in the U.S. Coast Guard collection. IvoShandor 03:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Iowa expansion[edit]

Iowa could use some expansion. The current Des Moines Register article referenced has some good material in it, (AUg 25 article), this article also indicated that Des Moines missed the brunt of it, contradicting the statement about roads in Des Moines being flooded, which, I had added {{cn}} to in September. I went ahead and removed the statement, as I couldn't find a reference for it otherwise either. I have also found this article from Aug 20 which may help. Otherwise, besides maybe a copy edit, this could probably pass GA as is. Any eyes that have time to go over this would be appreciated, I will do so as well, and then nominate it at WP:GAC. IvoShandor 03:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Copy-edit question on Minnesota National Guard[edit]

In trying to c/e, I'm not sure of the intent of this sentence:

"The Minnesota Army National Guard soldiers guarded communities that were cleared out after the flooding early August 19." Are we saying that the communities were cleared out on August 19 by the flooding, so the Guard guarded them? Wouldn't they have been evacuated before the flooding?

I'm thinking that perhaps the phrase "early August 19" actually refers to the Guard, and so has been misplaced. If so, then the sentence would be more like this:

"Early on August 19, the Minnesota Army National Guard soldiers began guarding the communities that (were cleared out by the flooding) or (had been evacuated because of the flood threat). (Pick one - whichever fits better). If this is clarified, I can help structure the sentence to be accurate and read clearly. Thanks, Unimaginative Username 00:47, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the delay, I am not sure, I wrote mostly the Illinois section, and have worked on others, I will contact the user who I believe wrote it. IvoShandor 08:17, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To do for GA[edit]

Expansions noted above.

Iowa mostly, which is close to good enough methinks.

Clarify copy edit question.
Clarify fatalities.
Provide clear refs for the table
Clarify end result in all states, perhaps split of a section about the federal disaster declarations.
Ensure all ref links work and go to correct pages (e.g. make sure they weren't temporary links as the NOAA loves to use). Find archives or alternatives for any that don't work.

IvoShandor 08:03, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]