As Florida and America’s Southeast work to recover following two devastating hurricanes that crashed onto the coast within the span of about two weeks, conspiracy theories and misinformation about the origin of the storms have gone viral on social media.
The conspiracy theories have a major theme: that the disasters are power grabs by the government. Elected officials and experts fear that spread is hurting emergency response efforts.
One of the people working to debunk those false claims is Sarah Swann, a staff writer with Politifact. She has debunked several hurricane social media conspiracies, including one claiming Hurricane Milton was manufactured by the government to turn Tampa into a 15-minute city.
“PolitiFact has seen two major false narratives. One is that Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton were created through weather modification or otherwise planned. The other is that FEMA, which is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, their disaster assistance is not as it appears. Some viral social media posts have claimed that $750 payments from FEMA are loans that need to be paid back,” she said.
The payments to eligible individuals do not need to be paid back and are a minimum of $750. As for the weather, t is possible for individual clouds to be manipulated and rainfall to be induced.
But Jeff Chanton, a Florida State University Oceanologist and climatologist, says the technology to influence the climate of an entire region does not exist. And there are no tools that allow the government, or anyone else, to generate a Category5 hurricane.
“If we could control the weather here in Florida, it would be 78 degrees every day and sunny. And so I wish we could control the weather, but, you know, we're not even close to that. We can't even think about that. It's just insane to be spreading that rumor,” he said.
But that spread of misinformation isn’t new. Politifact’s Swann said those narratives pop up during most natural disasters. This time, she believes the widespread damage of these storms has made the conspiracies spread wider.
“We've seen known misinformers like Alex Jones, who created the Infowars podcast, and Representative Marjorie Taylor Green, both kind of spread these claims that the Hurricanes were result of weather modification, or that the government is controlling the weather somehow. But this is false,” she said.
The misinformation has also led to a misunderstanding on how emergency response efforts work. False social media posts are spreading the idea that the federal government comes into a local disaster area and takes over. According to U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson Sabrina Singh, the truth is that local and state governments take the lead.
“The state knows best what it needs for its communities. They ultimately have, you know, quite literally, the maps of their entire communities, cities and towns. So, when there is a response needed from the federal government, or in this case, when you need active duty personnel to flow into a situation, we flow in under the state,” she said.
The spread of misinformation has led to strong rebukes from several government officials, including Governor Ron DeSantis. He believes people spreading the misinformation are doing so for personal gain.
“Be careful about the nonsense that just that gets circulated, and just know that the more titillating it is, the more likely somebody is making money off of it. And they don't really give a damn about the well being and safety of the people that are actually in the eye of this storm,” he said.
And it’s not harmless fun, Swann said. Misinformation can lead to people being fearful of those who are trying to help them.
“Federal, state and local officials have said that these false claims can cause confusion and hinder emergency response efforts. And people living in areas affected by these disasters may be discouraged from seeking help because of this misinformation.”
Members of the public can submit questions about disaster response rumors and read debunkings of those common conspiracies on FEMA’s website.