Talk:Hurricane Helene

Edit request on 27 May 2025

In the last paragraph of the 'Aftermath' section, 'extension' and 'payment' are misspelled as 'extenstion' and 'pyament' 50.4.83.62 (talk) 19:51, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

 Done - Thanks for pointing them out. - ZLEA _T\^C 20:15, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Ian labeled as a Cat 4?

On the scale of the costliest hurricanes Ian is labeled as a Cat 4 when it was a Cat 5? Kingbob2011 (talk) 19:03, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

Ian weakened slightly from its Cat 5 peak to a Cat 4 as it made landfall. The chart is by landfall intensity. MarioProtIV (^talk/_contribs) 19:55, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

oh thank you correcting me Kingbob2011 (talk) 18:26, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

Should deserve this: Meteorological history of Hurricane Helene

as this storm was very significant it deserves a Meteorological history article Hypercyclone 2 (talk) 12:12, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Should this article contain a brief summary of the four Congressional hearings

Discussion requested by Drdpw via edit summary. Easy question to answer for discussion! The hearings originally had a stand alone article, which was deleted following an AFD. At the AFD, numerous editors stated the idea was good, it just did not pass WP:NEVENT's standards for a stand-alone article (specifically WP:LASTING-issues). The discussion was against a direct merge (hence the outcome being "Delete" over "Merge"), but several editors seemed to support the idea of the political inclusion. One of the deletion !votes in the AFD even stated, "I would be sympathetic to a request for draftification so the material can be repurposed." Another editor proposed a TNT (delete and restart), and also stated "I'd say merge, but that's already mentioned in both the Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton articles". Based on those comments, I archived in my userspace the AFD'ed version of the article so it can be repurposed. Currently, the article has exactly two sentences regarding the hearings...60 words saying hearings occurred, not what they covered. In fact, the section does not mention they were regarding FEMA, despite RS saying they were on FEMA.

The proposed addition is very summarized from the AFD'ed article (see stats from word counter below), so no one can argue it is a "merge", since the merge is more like a copy/paste.

1. Introduction to section.....Currently two sentences; 60 words.....AFD version: 125 words.....Proposed: 122 words.
2. First hearing summary.....AFD version: 687 words.....Proposed: 109 words.
3. Second hearing summary.....AFD version: 861 words.....Proposed: 199 words.
4. Third hearing summary.....AFD version: 270 words.....Proposed: 176 words.
5. Fourth hearing summary.....AFD version: 665 words.....Proposed: 249 words.
6. Total: AFD article: 3309 words....Proposed: 733 words.

Contrary to another editor's statement, there is clearly no merge of content (copy/pasting) occurring. Rather an extremely summarized version of the hearings, backed by secondary reliable sources, which is why other editors in the AFD supported TNT and repurposing the idea. No standalone article, but there is no reason to not include the information in this article. Given another editor claims (falsely based on a quick review of the actual AFD statements) that the AFD voted against having any content of the hearings in this article, I have asked the AFD closing adminstrator (albiet who has not logged onto Wikipedia for over 72 hours...) to clarify if the AFD did indeed end with a consensus against the hearings being mentioned, or if the very brief summarized version was not discussed. Based on two of the deletion-!VOTE editors statements, I believe they will clarify it was against a standalone article, not against them being mentioned. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:27, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• To note, other weather-related Congressional hearings are summarized on other articles, such as Hurricane Ian or Hurricane Alicia. Hurricane Katrina has a standalone article for Criticism of the government response to Hurricane Katrina, which has a section for the U.S. congressional investigation. So, the idea of brief summaries is not something new on Wikipedia. To mix in another idea, the entire plot section of Twister (1996 film) and Twisters (film) is unsourced, since it is generally accepted for the summary to be based on a primary source. Secondary sources are useful, but per WP:PRIMARY, they are not to be discounted and can still be valuable for summaries or sources. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:33, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

  No, a merge is not just a copy-paste from one article to another - it's when you take material from article A and add it to Article B. I also did not say that the AfD stopped us from having any material about the article - I was trying to subtly remind you that the AfD found massive issues with the content in the former articles, namely NOTNEWS/SYNTH/OR, and it was inappropriate to start adding large sections of that material to an article, the day after a merge had been rejected by the community. I also removed some material because it failed verification -. I can't help but notice that you reinstated that, without addressing the fundamental problems that the sources do not say what you have claimed they say. Take, for example, the following line:

  These hearings and their discoveries led to President Donald Trump in 2025, wanting to reduce, or even eliminate, the federal role of FEMA, and having individual states assume emergency management responsibilities instead

  You cited that to a New York Times article, . What the article actually says is Mr. Trump recently announced his intention to phase out FEMA after the 2025 hurricane season and shift long-term recovery responsibilities to states or other parts of the federal government.. It says nothing about the hearings, it does not say that the "discoveries" of the hearings lead to Trump's attempts to reduce FEMA. I've pointed this out several times, both at the AfD and in edit summaries, and yet you keep adding it to, essentially, every article even tangentially related. Speaking of which, you need to stop pasting your summary of the hearings into every single article even tangentially related, the moment somebody reverts you on this one.

  I'm going to ping other AfD participants here. @Dan Leonard @The Grid @Reywas92 and @Vanamonde93 ; what do you think about 10k worth of Weatherwriter's summary of the hearings that he's added to (by my count) 3 article so far, including FEMA, Discrimination in the United States, and this one? He's also added it to Hurricane Milton, and a substantial portion to Hurricane Ian?

  And in response to the last point- you are allowed to cite limited material to primary sources, but a roughly 800 word summary of a congressional hearing, with no secondary sources ( are not secondary or independent, are not about the hearings) is hardly compliant with policy and has, unexpectedly, resulted in weight and NPOV issues. I'm sorry, I'm trying to be sympathetic because I get what it's like to put hours of work into something only to discover the base was flawed, but this isn't appropriate. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 18:22, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

  Please be mindful of WP:CANVASSing for votes. On a quick analysis, this is a high canvassing issue. No other article was being discussed, besides this article. You brought in other articles and then mass-pinged everyone in the AFD, including on articles not even discussed in the AFD. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:51, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

  This is not an AfD... – The Grid (talk) 19:32, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

  Agree with everything here and what I wrote in the AfD. I nominated the original article for deletion because it was synthesis unsupported by its citations, not because it should be included wholesale in a different article. I still see nothing verifying that any of these four hearings were proper investigations to the caliber of the post-Katrina investigation, that they had any notability, that they impacted American politics in any way whatsoever (let alone led to actions by the president), or that any of them were particularly focused on the specific Helene and Milton issues mentioned. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 20:25, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• @GreenLipstickLesbian: Since you want to mention failed verification issues, let's talk about this. In this removal, you stated, "source is about many things, congressional hearings not being one of them". If I recall at ANI, weren't you the one who stated, "some allegations that FEMA employes committed crimes that I'm having a hard time finding in the source"? Oh! Look at that! A source covering the FEMA crimes. A source, you requested be added....at ANI...is added and you removed it because it didn't verify the hearings. Funny how I can find other sources which actually happen to verify that whole sentence: ! Request a source and then remove it for not allegedly not verifying a different item from what you requested to be verified. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:23, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

  I removed it as a DUE issue; what we have is a source talking about potential crimes by FEMA employees, which doesn't bring up the hearings, cited to a statement that says These hearings heavily focused on actions done by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), including failures in FEMA's response as well as political discrimination and criminal actions by FEMA employees. It supports exactly the words criminal actions by FEMA employees; it does not support that the hearings were about those. And we don't use primary sources for BLP claims, especially not court records/testimonies/hearings, etcetera. We don't even use them for convicted war criminals. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 19:28, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

  Now that is a valid reason to remove the sentence. Unfortunately, you never cited WP:DUE-issues for it, and only stated "some allegations that FEMA employes committed crimes that I'm having a hard time finding in the source" for the removal reasoning (no WP:DUE-link even. Anyway, that issue would be solved with this source covering both the criminal actions and the hearing. So in theory, the reference should be replaced and that sentence should be reinstated into the article. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:32, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

  Even in re: criminal actions by FEMA employees, I don't think this was even a crime. The Hatch Act is purely administrative. The employee was fired, but I see no coverage of criminal charges filed. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 20:39, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• That screenshot in the proposed version looks like something I would see on Conservapedia lol. Probably shouldn't be included here as I doubt it adds that much and it is rather low quality. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 19:30, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

  Agreed – one employee's Hatch Act violation seems a bit much, but if there's a lot of reporting on it I guess it could be due. Hate the image though, the poor quality is almost dizzying to look at. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 20:19, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

  It looks like the video from cameras they put vaseline on to make women look more etherial in the 1950s. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 20:25, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Even if a summary is included I think the blurb about the hearings should be removed from the lede, since it's not really a major feature in the article. MCRPY22 (talk) 05:45, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't think a summary of each Congressional hearing is needed, but the fact that there were four hearings is important. That fact could be included, plus anything actionable that came out of it (like any changes in laws/procedure from the investigation). ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:44, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

The problem is that these hearings were routine legislative procedure, not some big investigation. It was three separate committees hauling in FEMA staff for all kinds of different issues, not one coherent series on the same topic and certainly not all focused on Helene. There's no secondary sourcing for any of them showing any political or legal impact whatsoever. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 19:48, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

The fact there was even an investigation is noteworthy in proving that Helene, along with Milton and other storms that provoke congressional hearings, is an independent way of proving how notable an event was. There are not investigations for ordinary tropical depressions and storms, even your run-of-the-mill hurricane that happens a few times a year. Even if it's just a one or two sentence bit, I think it's not only fine, but important, to mention that they occurred as part of the aftermath. We usually include local/state/federal responses to storms, if that even happens at all. Take a different Helene that affected the US, which covered the aftermath, minor that it was. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 20:31, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 August 2026

Add Greenville County School District to preparations window underneath South Carolina. My area within the district (24) had to shut down and transition to virtual learning as well during that time. Wompberry (talk) 16:20, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

@Wompberry: - what would you like the proposed text to say? And do you have a source for all South Carolina counties that closed? Right now we have this:

"Schools in Bamberg, Fairfield, Kershaw, Lee, Saluda, Sumter, Richland One and Two counties, University of South Carolina, Clarendon, Calhoun, Newberry, Orangeburg, Lexington One, Two, and Four, and Lexington-Richland Five counties all closed and switched to e-learning classes on September 27."

But that could be better if it had the number of counties that either closed or did e-learning due to the storm. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:37, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

References