The aftermath of Hurricane Helene has sparked a flood of misinformation online, with federal, state and local leaders sounding the alarm that it is complicating an already difficult recovery process in the South.
The false claims began shortly after Helene hit Florida, Georgia and North Carolina late last month, leaving widespread destruction and a long road ahead for hundreds of thousands of residents.
Falsehoods about government funding were among the most shared claims on social media, including by former President Trump, who baselessly claimed last week that the government is purposely withholding aid from Republican hurricane victims while the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is redirecting disaster relief funds to migrants.
Both of these claims have been refuted by FEMA, which created a page titled “Hurricane Rumor Response,” where users can see debunked rumors about the agency’s response.
Now, government officials are warning the spread of inaccurate information and conspiracy theories is hindering the search, rescue and recovery work.
Calling the claims “truly dangerous,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told ABC’s “This Week” that the phenomenon is affecting the agency’s on-the-ground efforts.
“It has a tremendous impact on the comfort level of our own employees to be able to go out there,” she said Sunday. “But it’s also demoralizing to all of the first responders that have been out there in their communities helping people — FEMA staff, volunteers, the private sector that are working side by side with local officials to go out and help people.”
“I need to make sure I can get the resources to where they are needed, and when you have this dangerous rhetoric like you’re hearing, it creates fear in our own employees,” she added.
These concerns come as Hurricane Milton is expected to hit Florida on Wednesday, bringing what President Biden said could be the worst storm to hit the Sunshine State in more than 100 years.
Much of Florida’s west coast is under evacuation orders, and the White House said Tuesday it would launch a Reddit page with official updates for Hurricane Milton.
Biden said Tuesday that those who share misinformation, including political figures, are trying to “damage” his administration by doing so, while White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called for an immediate stop to the false claims.
“Unfortunately, scam artists and bad-faith actors and others who are putting politics over people are promoting misinformation about our efforts,” Jean-Pierre said in Monday’s press briefing, adding, “False information following a disaster can discourage people from seeking critical assistance when they need it the most.”
“Everyone, especially those in positions of power, must do everything they can to encourage survivors to register for assistance, not discourage them by allowing these falsehoods to fester,” she added.
Cayce Myers, the director of graduate studies at Virginia Tech’s School of Communication, said misinformation can create “noise” that drowns out the accurate information for storm victims.
“During crises, clarity of message is important, and what disinformation does is it clouds that clarity of message and creates confusion and uncertainty,” Myers told The Hill.
“You may have information out there that is good information, but … the noise of the disinformation drowns that out for those who really need to hear it, and so they don’t hear anything. They either turn it off or listen to the wrong speaker.”
In North Carolina, the state’s emergency response team is attempting to get rid of the “noise” through a “fact vs. rumor” page where rumors are debunked.
Some local leaders have lamented that efforts like those take away from the time and energy that could be used for recovery.
“Two things: 1) To my knowledge, FEMA, [state officials], nor anyone else is confiscating supplies. Please quit spreading those rumors as they are counterproductive to response efforts. 2) If everyone could maybe please put aside the hate for a bit and pitch in to help, that would be great,” Knox County, Tenn., Mayor Glenn Jacobs (R) wrote on the social platform X.
The calls for an end to the rumors are coming from both sides of the aisle, including from Republicans who usually have little incentive to defend the Biden administration against Trump, the GOP presidential nominee.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.) said the “distractions” are not needed on the ground.
“It is at the expense of the hardworking first responders and people that are just trying to recover their life,” Tillis said Sunday on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”
Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp also jumped to Biden’s defense after Trump claimed the governor had trouble reaching the president. Kemp and the White House confirmed Biden spoke with the governor, who praised the president’s response to Helene.
Swirling misinformation has stoked various conspiracy theories shared by far-right extremist groups. One theory claims officials are planning to bulldoze impacted communities in Chimney Rock, N.C., and that the land will be seized from residents.
In reality, the town was largely wiped out by Helene, and local officials have confirmed there are no plans to seize the land, according to a report from NewsNation, which is owned by Nexstar Media Group, also the parent company of The Hill.
Echoing conspiracy theories about past storms, some have claimed the government “geoengineered” the hurricane to access lithium deposits in Chimney Rock, while some have tried to connect the timing to the November election.
Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards (N.C.), whose district includes the Asheville area hit heavily by Helene, released an eight-bullet list Tuesday attempting to refute the rumors. He wrote “untrustworthy sources” have tried to “spark chaos” in spreading these rumors.
Dhanaraj Thakur, a research director with the Center for Democracy and Technology, echoed this, saying misinformation can create “uncertainty and fear.”
“When you have tremendous, huge natural disasters, like these hurricanes, you already have a lot of chaos, uncertainty, fear on the ground, and this mis-information just amplifies that,” he said. “That undermines any coordination, and communication around disaster recovery.””
Uncertainty can often sow distrust in the government, noted Yotam Ophir, an associate professor at the University of Buffalo who is focused on misinformation, conspiracy theories and persuasion.
A result of misinformation, Ophir said, “is the loss of trust in the government in general, but also in FEMA and the organizations responsible for mitigating those risks and helping people out during those hard times.”
“We need to work together during these days. We need the government to be able to work with people on the ground, with people on the local level. Distrust makes all of that impossible to do,” he added.
While FEMA and other state governments have established fact-checking sites to curb misinformation, Ophir warned these platforms can amplify and increase the reach of the rumor itself.
The fact-checking should be done by nonpartisan professionals, who he suggested might be more trusted across the aisle than the federal government, he said.
Updated Oct. 9 at 11:26 a.m.