With misinformation swirling in Hurricane Helene’s wake, officials urge residents to ‘stop this conspiracy theory junk’

By Michael Williams, CNN

(CNN) — Local officials and relief agencies working in communities impacted by Hurricane Helene are urging residents to verify the information they are sharing or repeating, saying a deluge of false rumors is hindering recovery efforts.

The hurricane tore a destructive path through the southeastern United States a week ago, killing more than 200 people, plunging some rural communities into isolation and leaving tens of thousands in need of aid. Like in past disasters, disrupted lines of communication and a dearth of immediately verifiable information have led some to latch onto – or invent – stories and rumors that provide explanations to questions that might not immediately be answerable, experts and officials say.

“When natural disasters hit, part of our reaction is to be fearful, and to be keen for any way to try and make sense of things,” said Dr. David Harker, a professor and chair of Philosophy and Humanities at East Tennessee State University who has studied misinformation.

As a result, Harker said, “we become hungrier for any kind of information that helps us make sense of a chaotic and frightening world.”

Some of the rumors floating around in Helene’s wake seem designed to tap into peoples’ preconceived political biases. A popular rumor, promoted by former President Donald Trump and X owner Elon Musk, suggests the federal government is confiscating or otherwise diverting aid meant for Helene relief efforts as part of a political ploy.

Presenting no evidence, Trump claimed earlier this week that the Biden administration, along with North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, is withholding or diverting relief funds because the hardest hit areas are prominently Republican, while Musk claimed in a post on X that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is “actively blocking citizens who try to help.”

Trump has also baselessly claimed that some of the diverted funds are being used to help migrants: “A billion dollars was stolen from FEMA to use it for illegal migrants,” he said Friday.

Trump is actually accusing the Biden administration of an act very similar to something he did as president. In 2019, Trump’s administration moved $155 million meant for FEMA disaster relief to support immigration enforcement.

Those rumors prompted many state and local officials – including other Republicans – to push back. North Carolina state Sen. Kevin Corbin, who represents a district in the hard-hit western portion of the state, posted an exasperated plea on his Facebook page Thursday:

“Will you all help STOP this conspiracy theory junk that is floating all over Facebook and the internet about the floods in [Western North Carolina]?” Corbin asked his followers, adding the rumors are “just a distraction to people trying to do their job.”

“Please don’t let these crazy stories consume you or have you continually contact your elected officials to see if they are true,” Corbin said in the post.

Several state and federal agencies also posted public pleas for clearer minds. In between posts sharing tips, resources and crucial information for Helene-affected communities, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency posted a “Misinformation Alert” to its Facebook page on Wednesday explaining that state and federal agencies “are not confiscating supplies.”

The American Red Cross posted a lengthy tweet on Thursday batting down several rumors and adding that misinformation “disrupts our ability to deliver critical aid and affects the disaster workers who have put their own lives on hold to assist those in need.”

In a press conference on Friday, both Cooper and the FEMA administrator said the rumors are having a real impact on recovery efforts on the ground.

The claims that the state government is asleep at the wheel “demoralize” the hundreds of National Guard soldiers who have been assisting with recovery efforts, Cooper said: “When people talk on social media about that nothing is being done, that’s just not true, and it’s frustrating to them.”

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said at the same press conference that false information might dissuade people who actually need help from seeking it: “This level of misinformation creates the scenario where they won’t even come to us. They won’t even register, and I need people to register so they can get what they’re eligible for through our programs.”

While denying that any funds from the state or federal emergency management agencies are confiscating relief supplies, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee told a local TV station “there’s some belief and understanding” that the root of the misinformation is “foreign sources just to confuse on the ground what’s happening here.” Lee, a Republican, did not provide evidence for his claim of foreign interference, and a spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for information about what he meant.

But two prominent propagators of false information and outlandish conspiracies aren’t bots or shadowy foreign agents. They are elected officials who represent some of the areas most heavily impacted by the storm.

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the state’s embattled Republican gubernatorial nominee, spent much of this week lambasting his own state’s response to the storm.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Robinson claimed that “virtually every single aircraft currently running missions are privately owned. The few that aren’t are owned by states other than North Carolina.” That statement is directly contradicted by an earlier tweet from the North Carolina National Guard, which reported it had conducted 57 air missions and rescued more than 400 people.

“Our Soldiers and Airmen are working 24 hours a day across a dozen counties to get North Carolinians the help they need,” the state guard commander, Maj. Gen. Todd Hunt, said in a Wednesday tweet.

Robinson on Tuesday also thanked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for sending relief to his state, saying, “Florida is going to rebuild the roads in North Carolina.” The executive director of the union representing state employees in North Carolina disputed that notion, saying crews “have been busting butt for days.”

“Our folks at DOT will appreciate the help from neighbors but how dare you want to lead them as a cabinet agency and say something like this!” State Employees Association of North Carolina executive director Ardis Watkins said in response.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who represents a district in North Georgia that was also hit by the storm, suggested without evidence that a vague, shadowy force “can control the weather” in a tweet that draws comparisons to her suggestion before she became a congresswoman that deadly California wildfires were caused by space lasers.

Spokespeople for Greene and Robinson did not immediately respond to a request for clarification of their comments on Friday.

Local media outlets have been working around the clock to counter some of the more outlandish rumors, theories and AI-generated imagery that’s emerged from the storm. But almost as quickly as one rumor is debunked, another pops up, sending callers streaming to their elected officials and creating a logjam that might hinder folks from requesting and receiving desperately needed aid, experts told CNN.

While social media has helped connect storm victims to aid, enabled them to check in with their loved ones and connected them to vital resources, it’s also exacerbated and magnified the spread of the false information that officials say hinder recovery efforts, Harker, the East Tennessee State professor, pointed out.

“I think as a society we’re very much trying to figure out how to approach this balance and of course some social media companies have put in their own fact checking systems which have mixed success,” Harker said. “I think what makes it particularly frustrating is clearly, in these times, social media could be an invaluable source of reliable information.”

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