Misinformation about the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season

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Devastation from a tornado in Wellington, Florida, caused by Hurricane Milton EF3 damage in Wellington, Florida, along Deer Path Lane, in October 2024.jpg
Devastation from a tornado in Wellington, Florida, caused by Hurricane Milton

Late in the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, misinformation and conspiracy theories spread about the nature of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, and about the post-storm disaster recoveries. False information was spread by several American right-wing personalities [1] and politicians, [2] including Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential candidate. [3] These widespread rumors caused significant difficulties for first responders and official recovery workers, [4] hampering rescue efforts, [5] and some officials were subject to threats of violence. [6] The White House and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued statements in response to these claims. [7]

Contents

Background

In early 2024, hurricane forecasters predicted a highly-active season, citing the La Niña effect and warm sea surface temperatures. [8] After the earliest-forming Category 5 hurricane on record, Hurricane Beryl, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintained this prediction through August. [9] In what was expected to be the peak season, however, there were few storms, [10] and some called the season a "bust". [11]

In late September and early October, Hurricanes Helene and Milton developed as Category 4 and 5 hurricanes, respectively, breaking the lull. [12] Helene caused extensive damage across the Southeastern United States, becoming the deadliest hurricane to strike the US mainland since Hurricane Katrina. [13] In particular, the hurricane caused flooding in western North Carolina, hundreds of miles from the coast; [14] NOAA described this unusually high inland rainfall as a "worst-case scenario" for the region. [15] Milton broke the National Weather Service's record for rapid intensification, strengthening to a Category 5 and increasing its wind speeds by 90 miles per hour (140 km/h) in 24 hours. [16] The season became the second costliest in history, with $190 billion in damages, [17] and broke records for amount of storm activity in the later period of a hurricane season. [18]

Claims

Weather modification

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia's 14th congressional district claimed in a tweet on October 3 that it is possible to use weather modification to influence hurricanes. [2] Three days later, Greene made another post claiming weather modification was possible and in use. [19] Prominent right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones [20] made claims that Hurricanes Milton and Helene were "weather weapons" created by the US government. [1] Meteorologists Matthew Cappucci, Katie Nickolaou, and James Spann claimed to have received threats, accusing them of concealing that the US government was controlling the hurricane. [21]

Marjorie Taylor Greene
@mtgreenee
 X logo 2023.svg

Yes they can control the weather.

It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.

October 3, 2024 [22]

Claims that the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) research project in Alaska can modify the weather have existed since at least 2012. [23] Agence France-Presse reported on popular social media posts claiming that the device created the storm; [24] however, a research scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which runs the project, stated that is too low-powered to control weather. [25] Likewise, the nationwide weather radar system known as Next-Generation Radar (NEXRAD) was the subject of claims that it could be used to control weather patterns. [26] As a radar system it emits only a small amount of energy, which NOAA's Hurricane Research Division states is too low to influence weather. [27]

In research prior to the 2024 season, researchers have considered the social and ethical impacts of hurricane modification. [28] In 2012, a survey found that proposals for weather modification to redirect hurricane paths induced feelings of anger in Florida residents. [29] The US government retired hurricane seeding experiments in 1963 after attempts proved futile [30] and in 1998 the American Meteorological Society adopted an official position considering it unfeasible. [31]

FEMA blocking aid

USA Today reported on viral social media posts claiming that law enforcement in North Carolina were seeking to arrest Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) staff for allegedly hindering relief work, [32] a claim denied by state officials. [33] Elon Musk faced criticism from The Atlantic , NPR, and Politico for amplifying claims without evidence that FEMA had been expropriating aid shipments, [34] blocking private citizens from rendering aid, [35] and that sheriffs in North Carolina had threatened to arrest FEMA staff. [36] The Twitter account for fake news website Real Raw News falsely claimed that the United States Marine Corps were using snipers to kill FEMA employees. [37] US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, FEMA Director of Public Affairs Jaclyn Rothenberg, and Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer received antisemitic attacks online [38] and claimed to have feared for their safety in response work. [39] FEMA received credible threats of violence directed at its staff, including calls for militias to shoot emergency responders. [6] One armed man acting alone was arrested in Rutherford County, North Carolina, on October 14, 2024 for making threats against FEMA employees; as a result, aid workers relocated their work from the county. [40]

On November 9, 2024, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell released an official statement announcing that a FEMA employee had "advise[d] her survivor assistance team to not go to homes with yard signs supporting President-elect Trump". Criswell referred to the act as "reprehensible". [41] The alleged discrimination occurred in Florida, [42] and the employee was fired for these alleged actions. [43] Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed a federal lawsuit against FEMA in response to the allegation of discrimination. [44]

Land acquisition

PBS News Hour reported on a belief that the US government was using the disaster to seize land, in particular destroyed homes. [45] Following Hurricane Helene, rumors spread online that Chimney Rock, North Carolina, had been intentionally abandoned by relief officials so that the federal government could mine lithium after evacuating the residents [46] or after leaving the residents for dead. [47] County officials denied any plans of the sort. [48] In Florida, WUSF reported similar rumors that spread in the days leading up to Hurricane Milton's landfall, which caused the governor's office to rebut claims of FEMA seizing Floridians' homes. [49]

Expenditure of relief funds on migrants

On October 3, Donald Trump accused the Biden administration of spending FEMA disaster relief funds on housing for "illegal migrants", and he claimed that the agency had run out of funding for disaster recovery efforts. [50] Ohio Representative Jim Jordan similarly claimed that disaster funds had gone to house migrants. [51] Elon Musk amplified the claim on Twitter, indicating that he viewed FEMA's alleged expenditures on migrants as "treason" and endorsing a call for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to be arrested. [52] The Washington Post found no evidence that FEMA had redirected any disaster relief funding to migrant resettlement, [3] and the agency stated that it had continued to spend money towards relief efforts. [53]

AI-generated images

AI-generated image of Donald Trump assisting in disaster relief, shared online in September 2024 AI-generated Donald Trump wading through floodwaters.jpg
AI-generated image of Donald Trump assisting in disaster relief, shared online in September 2024

On social media, multiple viral AI-generated images spread supposedly depicting the hurricane and its response. The Knoxville News Sentinel reported on one image of a flooded town that was claimed to be Gatlinburg, Tennessee, prompting a response from town officials that the town was not flooded and safe to visit. [55]

After Helene, an AI-generated image of a girl holding a puppy while sitting in a boat floating on flooded waters circulated among Republicans, who used it as evidence of alleged failures of the Biden administration to respond to the disaster. [56] The Atlantic noted that some politicians did not retract the image after learning it was fake, "insisting that it's real on some deeper level". [57] Another image cited by USA Today depicted Donald Trump wading through floodwaters to rescue people, despite Trump wearing different clothing during his visit to the area. [54] Following Milton's track across Florida, AI-generated images depicting flooding in Walt Disney World posted to Telegram by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti were republished by Russian news networks. [58] AI- and computer-generated images supposedly documenting the October 9 tornado outbreak were widely shared, including by British tabloid The Mirror. [59] Reuters quoted an anonymous US intelligence official who claimed Russian and Chinese influence operations spread AI-generated misinformation related to the hurricanes. [60]

Risk of dam collapse in Cuba

The Cuban Army reported that false rumors were spreading online surrounding the collapse of the Pozo Azul Dam in San Antonio del Sur after Hurricane Oscar. However, official military and water experts stated that the dam never reached full capacity nor sustained any damage from the hurricane. [61]

Effects

Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer, FEMA director Deanne Criswell, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, and President Joe Biden speaking during an aerial tour to survey damage caused by Hurricane Helene aboard Marine One on October 2, 2024 President Joe Biden speaks with Governor Roy Cooper, Mayor Esther Manheimer, and FEMA Director Deanne Criswell during an aerial tour aboard Marine One to assess areas impacted by Hurricane Helene (54038650418).jpg
Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer, FEMA director Deanne Criswell, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, and President Joe Biden speaking during an aerial tour to survey damage caused by Hurricane Helene aboard Marine One on October 2, 2024

Multiple commentators alleged that Republican Party politicians' promotion of these claims was intended to gain an advantage in the 2024 United States presidential election. Jim Puzzanghera in The Boston Globe claimed that the party was "seeking [an] edge" in hurricane-battered Georgia because it is a swing state, "exploiting the trauma" by using claims about the Biden administration's response efforts to reduce support for the Kamala Harris's campaign. [62] The Guardian misinformation reporter Rachel Leingang argued that misinformation was likely so prevalent due to the proximity to the election, quoting a fellow at the American Immigration Council who claimed that "there's no question that this level of falsehoods would not be spread were there not an election a month away". [63]

Local officials and relief workers have had to expend resources combatting misinformation that might otherwise have been used toward first response work. [4] FEMA and White House officials have expressed concern that survivors and others impacted by the storms may be less likely to seek relief from the agency due to the misinformation. [5] In response, the White House directed federal agencies to engage with the public on social media with evidence the government was on the ground helping relief efforts. [7] FEMA added a page on its website to rebut claims. [64] Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards, who represents North Carolina's 11th congressional district which was heavily affected by Hurricane Helene, released a statement to his constituents rebutting several claims. [65] Writing in The Atlantic, former US Department of Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem gave particular criticism to Twitter under Elon Musk, where she argued recent changes to content moderation had made it more difficult to discern reliable sources. [66]

See also

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hurricane Milton</span> Category 5 Atlantic hurricane in 2024

Hurricane Milton was an extremely powerful and destructive tropical cyclone which became the second-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded over the Gulf of Mexico, behind only Hurricane Rita in 2005. Milton made landfall on the west coast of the U.S. state of Florida, less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene devastated the state's Big Bend region. The thirteenth named storm, ninth hurricane, fourth major hurricane, and second Category 5 hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, Milton was the strongest tropical cyclone to occur worldwide in 2024.

References

  1. 1 2
    • O'Sullivan 2024: "'Treason Alert: The Biden-Harris Admin Have Been In Control of Hurricanes Helene and Milton Using Pentagon Weather Weapons,' read a Thursday morning headline on InfoWars, the website run by disgraced conspiracy theorist Alex Jones."
    • Leingang 2024b: "Alex Jones, the longtime conspiracy theorist liable for millions for defaming school shooting victims, started a broadcast this week with one of his favorite topics: weather manipulation."
    • Warzel 2024: "The posts would be laughable if they weren't taken by many people as gospel. Among them: Infowars' Alex Jones, who claimed that Hurricanes Milton and Helene were 'weather weapons' unleashed on the East Coast by the U.S. government"
  2. 1 2 Owen 2024: "[Rep. Marjorie Taylor] Greene, after spending years trying to distance herself from her infamous 2018 remarks on social media blaming wildfires on 'Jewish Space Lasers,' is now using this climate emergency to double down on weather conspiracies and lasers. While Greene stopped short of blaming Jews for the hurricanes, she has promoted conspiracies that have a history of being steeped in antisemitism. 'Yes they can control the weather,' Greene wrote on X on October 3 about the hurricanes, without specifying who 'they' are. 'It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done.'"
  3. 1 2 Hennessy-Fiske et al. 2024: "During a rally Thursday in Saginaw, Mich., former president Donald Trump suggested without evidence that FEMA had used some disaster relief money to help immigrants who are in the country illegally to resettle in the United States. There is no evidence that FEMA has diverted any disaster relief funding for this purpose."
  4. 1 2 Godfrey 2024: "The practical effect of these falsehoods is that local officials have to spend precious time and energy combatting misinformation, rather than recovery efforts."
  5. 1 2 Aton & Waldman 2024: "'The misinformation is extremely damaging to the response efforts from Helene and from any disaster,' [Keith Turi, FEMA's Acting Associate Administrator for Response and Recovery] said. 'It is reducing the likelihood that survivors will come to FEMA in a trusting way to register for assistance.'" (for the official statement, see LaBolt 2024: "In fact, disinformation after a hurricane or other natural disaster can discourage people from seeking critical assistance when they need it most.")
  6. 1 2
    • Institute for Strategic Dialogue 2024: "Falsehoods around hurricane response have spawned credible threats and incitement to violence directed at the federal government – this includes calls to send militias to face down FEMA for the perceived denial of aid, or to shoot and/or harm FEMA officials and the agency’s emergency responders."
    • Selig 2024: "Calls were made for residents to form militias to defend against those workers, who also faced antisemitic and misogynistic threats."
  7. 1 2 Alvarez et al. 2024: "Senior US officials have also instructed public affairs teams at federal agencies to ramp up social media posts from government accounts with photos that illustrate how federal workers are clearing debris and dispensing aid, the first US official familiar with the effort said."
  8. ↑ Rajalakshmi 2024: "This year's hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 is going to be even worse, according to a University of Arizona hurricane prediction model."
  9. ↑ NOAA 2024a: "'The hurricane season got off to an early and violent start with Hurricane Beryl, the earliest category-5 Atlantic hurricane on record,' said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. "NOAA's update to the hurricane seasonal outlook is an important reminder that the peak of hurricane season is right around the corner, when historically the most significant impacts from hurricanes and tropical storms tend to occur.'"
  10. ↑ Koren 2024 "Then, what should have been the busiest part of the season was instead eerily quiet. It was 'fairly surprising,' Emily Bercos-Hickey, a research scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told me."
  11. ↑ Lowry 2024: "Back around the traditional ramp up to the hurricane season peak in early September, lots was written about the hurricane season 'bust' – alluding to what forecasters predicted to be one of the busiest hurricane seasons on record.
  12. ↑ Koren 2024: "Then, beginning late last month, came a tremendous burst of activity: Hurricane Helene, which broke storm-surge records in Florida and dropped devastating rains far inland; a flurry of named storms that spun up in quick succession; and now Milton."
  13. ↑ Masters & Henson 2024: "The death toll wreaked on the Southeast U.S. by Hurricane Helene, as tracked by CNN, reached 180 on Wednesday morning, October 2. The toll pushes Helene above 2022's Hurricane Ian (156 U.S. deaths) and makes it one of the three deadliest hurricanes of the past half-century across U.S. states and territories. The only hurricanes in that period that took more lives than Helene were Katrina (2005) and Maria (2017)."
  14. ↑ Sommer 2024: "Hurricane Helene's destructive path tore across several states, causing the ocean surge on the Florida coast and cutting off power supplies in Georgia. But the heaviest rainfall, and some of the worst damage, was hundreds of miles from where the storm made landfall."
  15. ↑ Thiem & Lindsey 2024: "This event is close to, if not a worse-case [sic] scenario meteorologically speaking, for western North Carolina. The full extent of the damages is still being realized and will take months to years to document and recover from."
  16. ↑ Harvey 2024: "The storm underwent an extremely rapid intensification as it churned across the Gulf, gaining more than 90 mph [140 km/h] in wind speeds over the course of just 24 hours. It shattered the scientific definition of rapid intensification, which the National Weather Service describes as an increase of 35 mph [56 km/h] in a single day."
  17. ↑ Paciorek et al. 2024: "The season is also the second costliest in history, with ~190 billion U.S. dollars lost in damage."
  18. ↑ NOAA 2024b: "Twelve named storms formed after the climatological peak of the season in early September. Seven hurricanes formed in the Atlantic since September 25 — the most on record for this period."
  19. ↑ Dunbar 2024: "She appeared to double down on these comments with a post on Saturday, sharing a clip from a 2013 CBS News broadcast about experimental efforts to induce rain and lightning using lasers. 'CBS, nine years ago, talked about lasers controlling the weather,' Greene wrote, apparently mistaking the year of the broadcast."
  20. ↑
    • Byford 2011, p. 11: "The popular syndicated daily radio show produced and presented by Alex Jones, one of America's best known conspiracy theorists"
    • Hyzen & Van den Bulck 2021, p. 162: "We discuss how Jones distinct political persona –that personifies right-wing, populist-conspiracism –results from an apparent merger of his public and private persona, communicated in emotional, exaggerated terms, what Jutel refers to as affective performativity."
    • Keeley 2024, p. 1: "In early 2024, the American personality most likely to be described as a 'conspiracy theorist' is, by my estimation, Alex Jones. Jones has been in the news a lot recently –even more than normal over the more than two decades of his career as a cultural and political provocateur, founder and primary host on Infowars."
    • Munro 2024, p. 8: "Consider the theory that the shootings were a hoax staged by professional actors, who were hired by Democrats looking to push through stricter gun control measures. High-profile conspiracists like Alex Jones began circulating this theory soon after the tragedy."
    • Southern Poverty Law Center n.d.: "Since the founding of the far-right radio and internet conspiracy website Infowars, Alex Jones has made a name for himself peddling wild antigovernment conspiracy theories. … Jones is one of the most prolific and influential conspiracy theorists in contemporary America."
    • Van den Bulck & Hyzen 2020, p. 43: "So, rather than social media simply 'making' Alex Jones, he uses social media as amplifiers of his right-wing alternative media enterprise, itself a tool in spreading his message as ideological entrepreneur."
  21. ↑
    • Cappucci: Selig 2024: "Matthew Cappucci, a D.C.-based meteorologist for MyRadar and The Washington Post, said he received hundreds of comments and dozens of messages during the storms about how the government had modified the weather and that accused him of helping cover it up."
    • Nickolau: Selig 2024: "And a meteorologist for a television station in Lansing, Mich., said she had received death threats. 'Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes,' wrote the forecaster in Michigan, Katie Nickolaou, in a social media post."
    • Spann: Dupré 2024: "'I've been doing this for 46 years and it's never been like this,' Alabama meteorologist James Spann told the magazine, adding that he's been 'inundated' with eerie messages telling him to 'stop lying about the government controlling the weather or else.'"
  22. ↑ Greene 2024.
  23. ↑
    • Dumé 2021: "HAARP has previously been the subject of conspiracy theories"
    • Selig 2024: "Dr. [Marshall] Shepherd said that such false claims about outside forces controlling the weather have always existed, recalling how similar assertions emerged during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. 'The difference is that they were always out there in 'fringe-world,' but now I’ve seen them become almost mainstream,' he said."
  24. ↑
    • Wade 2024: "As a massive hurricane thrashed the southeastern United States in late September 2024, social media posts claimed Democrats used the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) to create the storm to prevent Republicans from voting in the upcoming presidential election."
    • See also Burns 2024: "Meanwhile, other users claimed that 'HAARP transmissions' were similarly involved."
  25. ↑ Fournier 2017: "HAARP attracts more attention than the average scientific research facility, likely because of its focus on an obscure area of the atmosphere called the ionosphere. This has led to misunderstandings about the purpose of the HAARP facility, said Chris Fallen, UAF research assistant professor in space physics and aeronomy. HAARP cannot control the weather, contrary to one conspiracy theory. It has too little power and affects a different part of the atmosphere, Fallen said."
  26. ↑ Burns 2024: "For example, on 30 September 2024 a video was shared on Facebook, gathering over 27,000 interactions after claiming that 'Hurricane Helene's path and behavior could have been manipulated by NEXRAD frequency transmissions'."
  27. ↑ Burns 2024: "For additional insight, we also contacted Shirley Murillo, Deputy Director of NOAA's Hurricane Research Division, who commented: 'The amount of energy sent out by NEXRAD radars is vanishingly small compared to the amount of energy expended in a hurricane. The hurricane consists solely of air and water and the beam either just passes through or is partially reflected back by small water drops. It doesn’t have enough energy to move even those tiny drops.'"
  28. ↑ Klima & Morgan 2012.
  29. ↑ Klima et al. 2012 , p. 1203: "Third, more anger was evoked when a hurricane was described as having changed from the initially forecasted path or strength after an attempted modification"
  30. ↑ Willoughby et al. 1985 , p. 513: "STORMFURY itself, however, had two fatal flaws: it was neither microphysically nor statistically feasible. Observational evidence indicates that seeding in hurricanes would be ineffective because they contain too little supercooled water and too much natural ice. Moreover, the expected results of seeding are often indistinguishable from naturally occurring intensity changes."
  31. ↑
    • American Meteorological Society 1998, p. 2771: "No sound physical hypotheses exist for the modification of hurricanes, tornadoes, or damaging winds in general, and no related scientific experimentation has been conducted in the past 20 years."
    • See also Morgan & Dowlatabadi 2023, p. 210: "While it looks like wind-wave pumps could reduce the surface temperature and in that way reduce a hurricane's intensity, it is not clear that there is a technology that could steer a hurricane."
    • and Klima & Morgan 2012, p. 1013: "To our knowledge, no plausible technique to alter the landfall location of a [tropical cyclone] has been proposed yet."
  32. ↑
    • Byik 2024: "'NC State Police just sent a warning to FEMA that they will arrest any FEMA agent who tries to prevent aid or rescue,' reads the post"
    • Pascone 2024: "A post on the social media platform X is claiming the 'North Carolina State Police' issued a statement threatening the arrest of any federal employees that hinders rescue operations."
  33. ↑
    • Byik 2024: "Anjanette Grube, a spokesperson for the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, likewise said the bureau is 'not aware of any such warnings' and is working closely with FEMA."
    • Pascone 2024: "Check Your Fact was unable to find any official government statement that threatened any federal employees with arrest at all."
  34. ↑ Warzel 2024: "Elon Musk, who owns X, claimed—without evidence—that FEMA was 'actively blocking shipments and seizing goods and services locally and locking them away to state they are their own. It's very real and scary how much they have taken control to stop people helping.'"
  35. ↑ Brady & Baker 2024: "Musk fed into a common complaint online that governments are preventing private citizens from offering help to people in need. Musk wrote that his 'blood is boiling' after engineers from his company SpaceX tried to offer help via helicopter but '@FEMA wouldn't let them land to deliver critical supplies.'"
  36. ↑ Aton & Waldman 2024: "On his social network, X, Musk also amplified rumors that authorities in North Carolina had 'taken control to stop people helping' stricken residents and accusations that sheriffs were threatening to arrest FEMA staff 'if they hinder rescue and aid work.'"
  37. ↑ Thalen 2024: "'We have spoken to a Marine sniper who reportedly now has 5 confirmed FEMA kills in North Carolina,' the account alleged. 'He has told us "it's the fight of our lives."'"
  38. ↑ Medina 2024: "The antisemitic attacks have been lobbed mainly at the mayor of Asheville, Esther Manheimer, as well as at the secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's director of public affairs, Jaclyn Rothenberg."
  39. ↑ Oremus & Joselow 2024: "Manheimer, who surveyed the damage from Helene during a flight on Marine One with Biden last week, said she worries about her safety and that of other Jewish officials in the hard-hit region."
  40. ↑ Sacks & Lamothe 2024: "On Monday, the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that it had arrested [a man] on charges of making threats against Federal Emergency Management Agency employees. FEMA and U.S. Forest Service personnel, who had been working on recovery, relocated, and at least some work in the county was paused."
  41. ↑ Criswell 2024b.
  42. ↑ Alsharif 2024: "A Federal Emergency Management Agency employee was fired after advising a survivor assistance team not to visit homes with yard signs that support President-elect Donald Trump during Hurricane Milton relief efforts in Florida last month."
  43. ↑ Whitehead 2024: "A Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) supervisor has been fired for telling staff helping hurricane survivors to skip houses displaying signs supporting Donald Trump."
  44. ↑
    • Elliott 2024: "Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is suing Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell, and a former FEMA supervisor for violating the civil rights of Florida residents in the response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which hit in late September and early October. The federal lawsuit accuses FEMA officials of conspiring to discriminate against Florida hurricane victims who support President-elect Donald Trump."
    • See also CNN 2024.
  45. ↑ Kayyem 2024b: "One very harmful lie that is being spread is that the government — this is the opportunity for the government to take your house."
  46. ↑ Brady & Baker 2024: "Perhaps no area in North Carolina has been the subject of more blatant false online rumors than Chimney Rock — including the persistent untrue claim that FEMA abandoned the village so that the Biden administration can mine lithium there."
  47. ↑ Kelly 2024: "Others … suggest officials are deliberately abandoning bodies in the cleanup."
  48. ↑ Ferris 2024: "Rutherford County Emergency Management said claims of a government seizure of Chimney Rock 'are entirely false,' adding that no 'special meeting' was held to discuss seizing the town. Rutherford County Emergency Management clarified that North Carolina lawmakers met with local officials to request federal and state support."
  49. ↑ Jingnan 2024: "As Hurricane Milton approaches Florida, Christina Pushaw, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' press secretary, took to social media to rebuke one viral falsehood that urged people not to evacuate so as to protect their property from FEMA: 'Spreading LIES like this could have serious consequences.' She urged people to follow directions to evacuate."
  50. ↑ Rodriguez & McDaniel 2024: "'Kamala has spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants,' Trump said at a rally Thursday. Harris does not disburse FEMA funding as vice president. The claim about using disaster relief funding to house immigrants is false, a Washington Post fact check found."
  51. ↑ Strickler, Alexander & Guilfoil 2024: "Some, like Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, falsely claimed on X that FEMA had used disaster funds to house migrants and that the government had 'abandoned' hard hit areas. X owner Elon Musk, among Trump's most vocal backers, reposted Jordan's false claim and a variety of others about FEMA."
  52. ↑ Joselow et al. 2024: "He labeled FEMA's actions 'treason' and sent a reply indicating agreement with a post from another user who said Harris and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas 'should be jailed for life for spending FEMA money on illegal aliens and not Americans.'"
  53. ↑
    • Joselow et al. 2024: "FEMA also said in a news release Saturday that federal aid provided had topped $110 million so far."
    • Criswell 2024a: "We absolutely have the funding that we need to support the ongoing response to Helene and the response that we're preparing for Hurricane Milton. There has been no money diverted from the disaster relief fund to go support any other requirements across the federal government."
  54. 1 2 Hudnall 2024: "But the image, which was shared the same day and shows the former president wading through a flooded street, isn't legitimate. … There are no credible reports of the former president wading through flood waters while visiting Georgia. Pictures captured during his trip show him wearing a black suit with a red tie, not the blue long-sleeve shirt shown in the viral image."
  55. ↑ Kiehl 2024: "The reality is that the City of Gatlinburg is inviting tourists back to the area. "We are welcoming anyone who can safely travel here," the Gatlinburg Convention and Visitors Bureau said on X."
  56. ↑
    • Jingnan 2024: "After images of the devastation left by Hurricane Helene started to spread online, so too did an image of a crying child holding a puppy on a boat. Some of the posts on X (formerly Twitter) showing the image received millions of views. It prompted emotional responses from many users –including many Republicans eager to criticize the Biden administration's disaster response."
    • Kayyem 2024a: "To illustrate claims that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had abandoned Helene's victims, right-wing influencers shared an AI-generated image of a weeping child holding a wet puppy. Another fake viral image showed Donald Trump wading through floodwaters.
    "
  57. ↑
    • Warzel 2024: "Similarly, those sharing the lies are happy to admit that they do not care whether what they're pushing is real or not. Such was the case last week, when Republican politicians shared an AI-generated viral image of a little girl holding a puppy while supposedly fleeing Helene. Though the image was clearly fake and quickly debunked, some politicians remained defiant. 'Y'all, I don’t know where this photo came from and honestly, it doesn't matter,' Amy Kremer, who represents Georgia on the Republican National Committee, wrote after sharing the fake image. 'I'm leaving it because it is emblematic of the trauma and pain people are living through right now.' Kremer wasn't alone. The journalist Parker Molloy compiled screenshots of people 'acknowledging that this image is AI but still insisting that it's real on some deeper level'"
    • See also Jingnan 2024: "But even after the image's synthetic provenance was revealed, others doubled down. 'I don't know where this photo came from and honestly, it doesn't matter.' wrote Amy Kremer, a Republican National Committee member representing Georgia, on X. … In the same post defending her decision to keep the synthetic image up, Kremer also wrote: 'it is emblematic of the trauma and pain people are living through.'"
  58. ↑
    • VOA News 2024: "Numerous Russian news outlets republished the images with catchy headlines, with the topic trending on Yandex Dzen, the Russia's [sic] version of Google News, at the time of this writing. … The images are fake, likely AI generated, as an inspection of their properties reveals an apparent digital alteration of basic elements, including false autofocus, false background and other indicators."
    • Makuch 2024: "'Hurricane Milton has flooded Disney World in Orlando,' wrote one known vector of disinformation on X, with the photos, which X users immediately noted was probably created using an automated AI image creator. The post has already been viewed over 300,000 times."
  59. ↑ McCarthy 2024: "The Mirror, a British tabloid, also shared several screenshots from the montage in an article. Hurricane Milton did churn up a spate of deadly tornadoes as it ripped across Florida on October 9 as a powerful Category 3 storm, leaving at least ten people dead and millions without power as it barrelled through communities still recovering from Hurricane Helene two weeks earlier. But each of the visuals in the viral compilation predates the storm – and one appears to be the product of computer-generated imagery."
  60. ↑ Shalal 2024.
  61. ↑ Aguilar 2024: "On Friday, the Cuban regime quickly utilized all available communication channels to assert that Hurricane Oscar did not inflict any damage on the Pozo Azul dam in the Caujerí Valley, Guantánamo. This statement came after widespread rumors of a potential rupture incited panic and chaos in San Antonio del Sur, a municipality already reeling from recent floods. … Furthermore, official journalist Bernardo Espinosa confirmed that experts from Aguas Terrestres reported the reservoir never reached full capacity despite the hurricane's impact."
  62. ↑ Puzzanghera 2024: "Democrats and even some Republicans have criticized Trump and his surrogates for exploiting the trauma of Helene's devastation by spreading misinformation about recovery efforts in its wake. … Republicans have tried to shift the focus in Georgia to the federal government's hurricane response, which they claim has been grossly inadequate."
  63. ↑ Leingang 2024a.
  64. ↑ Raby & Angueira 2024: "FEMA has dedicated part of its website to providing accurate answers to questions and addressing rumors on its response to Helene." (see FEMA 2024)
  65. ↑ Doty 2024: "Edwards, whose district encompasses much of the western counties, released a statement on Oct. 8, 2024, saying there's been an uptick in 'untrustworthy sources trying to spark chaos' with hoaxes." (for the official statement, see Edwards 2024)
  66. ↑ Kayyem 2024a: "But under its current owner, Elon Musk, the platform, renamed X, has changed its algorithms, account-verification system, and content-moderation approach in ways that make the platform less reliable in a crisis."

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