Rampant conspiracy theories are hindering hurricane relief efforts, say officials

As Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida, some of the dialogue on social media includes baseless theories that the storm has been geo-engineered, that the government is involved in hurricane creation and that such storms are being directed to hit predominantly Republican areas.

“Not only is that absurd, it’s frustrating,” said Amber Silver, an assistant professor at the University at Albany’s College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity.

It’s just an example of the series of false claims and conspiracy theories that have accompanied Milton, which is expected to make landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday, and Hurricane Helene, which also hit Florida and other southeastern U.S. states two weeks ago.

And it’s misinformation and disinformation that officials say have resulted in hampering the relief and recovery efforts. 

“It is absolutely the worst I have ever seen,” FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell told reporters on a Tuesday morning call, as reported by Politico. 

“It’s creating distrust in the federal government, but also the state government, and we have so many first responders that have been working to go out and help these communities.”

In North Carolina, for example, after Hurricane Helene made landfall, social media was replete with conspiracy theories that cautioned residents not to leave their homes, that if the Federal Emergency Management Agency came to the door, they were really there to bulldoze the house for the lithium deposits buried below, Silver said.

False information about relief funding

There has also been misinformation about funding for hurricane relief efforts, false claims that some areas, based on political demographics, are being purposefully neglected, or that relief funds are being diverted to migrants or to Ukraine.

Such misinformation is dissuading survivors from seeking help and has created a sense of fear and mistrust from residents against the thousands of FEMA employees and volunteers on the ground, Criswell said on ABC’s This Week.

Hurricane Helene killed more than 230 people across several states, including Floridians who didn’t leave and then drowned in their homes.

Much of the misinformation is being repeated and emphasized by politicians, by people with large TikTok followings and social media followings, Criswell said.

That spread of conspiracy theories includes former U.S. president Donald Trump, who, officials say, helped fuel a frenzy of misinformation over the past week among the communities most devastated by Helene. Trump promoted a number of false claims, including that Washington is intentionally withholding aid to people in Republican areas.

False claims about creating hurricanes

But other rumours, including the suggestion the hurricanes are intentional, have also gained steam. Crypto influencer Matt Walace tweeted out: “Don’t worry guys, weather modification isn’t real! It’s just a coincidence that Hurricane Helene is one of the most devastating ‘inland damage storms’ in history and that hundreds of pro-Trump counties are being massively impacted during the most important election of our lifetimes.”

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has also received a lot of attention for her false claim that “they control the weather.”

Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Giminez slammed her on X, formerly Twitter, Wednesday, replying “Humans cannot create or control hurricanes. Anyone who thinks they can, needs to have their head examined.”

Scientists have attempted to manipulate the weather somewhat through “cloud seeding” — the process of making tiny drops of water vapour and ice crystals in clouds stick together into larger, heavier droplets or pellets that fall as rain or snow.

Often, this is done by spraying particles of salts such as silver iodide or table salt using special flares carried by airplanes or projectiles such as rockets, cannons or missiles. The results, however, have been mixed.

But scientists so far have no ability to manipulate or create huge storms like hurricanes.

“If meteorologists could stop hurricanes, we would stop hurricanes,” Kristen Corbosiero, a professor of atmospheric and environmental sciences at the University at Albany, told The Associated Press. 

“If we could control the weather, we would not want the kind of death and destruction that’s happened.”

Abbie Richards, a misinformation researcher and climate activist with more than 500 thousand followers on TikTok, said in a post Tuesday that it’s understandable conspiracy theories are raging in the face of dangerous and rapidly intensifying storms — made worse by warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

“The more we are faced with things that make us feel uncertain, scared, powerless, the more we will rely on things like conspiracy theories that give us a false sense of control.”

Bill Gentry, director of Community Preparedness and Disaster Management Certificate Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said this type of misinformation is unprecedented and fairly new in this particular phase of a disaster event.

Misinformation used to mostly consist of state and local officials potentially contradicting one another about relief efforts. 

But he says there’s been a lot of effort to get all officials to co-ordinate and get on the same page. That means that misinformation has fundamentally changed, with some people now fuelling false claims about the event itself, and recovery efforts.

For Helene, there have been examples of people downgrading the importance of registering for disaster relief benefits, while spreading falsehoods that there are no benefits, that the benefits aren’t worth it or that benefits are more for one particular demographic region than another, Gentry said.

“If you layer on top of that social media requests and misinformation about what’s needed, what’s not needed that, then it just creates a lot of redundancy, a lot of resource scarcity and it convolutes the system,” he said.

The proliferation of such false claims and rumours have got to the point that FEMA and the North Carolina Department of Public Safety have been forced to create their own websites devoted to debunking some of the theories circulating.

But the false rumours have also led to a bipartisan effort from local officials to dismiss such claims, including pushback from some Republican politicians.

“The last thing that the victims of Helene need right now is political posturing, finger-pointing, or conspiracy theories that only hurt the response effort,” North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis said in a letter to constituents  on Sunday, the Washington Post reported.

‘Real public safety ramifications’

Silver agreed that there have been some really concerted efforts to manage the misinformation on both sides of the political spectrum. 

“The problem is that the volume and the vitriol of misinformation [related to] Hurricane Helene and Milton is just so far beyond anything that’s easy to manage, that it’s becoming a challenge,” she said. 

“What’s different with Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, I would say, is the type of misinformation that’s being shared. So this is misinformation that has very real public safety ramifications.“

That also includes foreign actors and bots sharing misinformation for the purpose of “stirring the pot,” she said.

Part of the problem with Helene in terms of misinformation, Silver said, is that it was a once-in-a-lifetime type of storm that impacted traditionally red, Republican states and it happened around the same time as a heated, polarized, presidential election.

“Tragically, I think in many ways, in terms of misinformation, Helene was a perfect storm.”