well as experts like Rick Davis track hurricane milen and work to keep the public informed they've run into a wave of misinformation surrounding natural disasters and the government's response many of the fake claims polluting social media stem from comments made by high-profile political leaders government response agencies like FEMA say it's having a dangerous impact on their Outreach efforts senior correspondent Brenda Flanigan dug in to the misinformation and what's being done to combat it [Music] it's just not feasible to move a hurricane or position a hurricane it doesn't happen Jersey meteorologist Joe maruchi Points in frustration to a flood of wild social media posts about hurricanes Helen and Milton category five level conspiracy theories surging on X Facebook and Tik Tok including is the US government controlling hurricane Milton and when FEMA comes in it's to take the land self styled whistleblowers claim well the climate change we need to be worried about is man-made climate engineering the amount of power that a major hurricane possesses would power half the world for a day we don't have that kind of energy output to manipulate that so it's just not true marui's math is solid but as Milton looms and FEMA rushes to address catastrophic damage in Hurricane Helen's wake the agency's chief Dean criswell's call the swirl of conspiracies not just demoralizing but truly dangerous it's absolutely the worst I have ever seen creating distrust in the federal government I've been doing disaster relief related work for nearly 20 years I have never seen this volume of misinformation Disaster Response expert Samantha Montano says it's eroding rescue efforts responders are having to focus on addressing the these rumors and this misinformation instead of actually being out on the ground helping people right so it is hampering the response in a number of ways you know it's just frustrating to the weather Community Emergency Management officials who are all working to protect you what the really disheartening and potentially lifethreatening thing here is is that partisanship can really get in the way of people's safety and the ability to actually get things done and help people recover Eagleton Ashley coning recalls the infamous bro hug between President Obama and governor Christie who blamed fellow Republicans for slow walking federal aid after superstorm Sandy but that was before social media's rapid intensification says political scientist Kyle Morgan I remember Sandy growing up in New Jersey and I remember seeing like kind of the fake news then where right like pictures of sharks in the subway and right like kind of weirdly photoshopped photos that are kind of harmless right Morgan says it's not harmless anymore the Ruckers Eagleton researcher who also teaches in South Carolina joined colleagues to Caravan Aid to Helen survivors he found the area around Asheville devastated with political disinformation rampant laced with false rhetoric this puts people's lives in danger and people are going to die because they believe that FEMA is going to come and take their land or something if they do leave and they're not there to defend it in some way and so it's really dangerous and it's spreading so fast on social media after Helen made landfall Georgia representative margerie Taylor green posted of the government yes they can control the weather and showed Maps where the hurricane red havoc on a track through red States Battlegrounds in the presidential election obviously that could potentially sway something with voters there if they don't see recovery efforts progressing this could possibly all have electoral implications come a couple weeks from now and especially in the most critical States for both of these candidates a couple of thousand votes can swing them in one direction of the other so you cannot dismiss any conspiracy theory you cannot dismiss any misinformation um everything's got to be batted back it's got to be batted back quickly um to prevent the spread of the misinformation riters M rasmas says FEMA posted corrections but that's no match for social media giants like Donald Trump who falsely posted Harrison Biden are giving almost all of the FEMA money to illegal migrants and it's echoed by Republicans like Jersey's US Senate candidate FEMA doesn't even have the money to take care of people in North Carolina and Tennessee because because we've diverted money to the Border crisis it's just something that new jerseyans are so upset about FEMA reports its disaster relief Aid has not been diverted still the agency's an easy target it's often the first government contact with traumatized storm victims and prone to blunders but one researcher reported a disturbing Trend 30 three debunked claims about FEMA scored 160 million views as of October 7th Montano says FEMA needs to fight back that we are not doing enough in the field to be proactive at figuring out how to handle this um and it's a really complicated issue right but I think we need to do more to acknowledge that politics is directly affecting how these response manifest that's a really difficult thing for emergency managers to navigate but we've got to start learning how to do that better Montana hopes for a post Milton Reckoning as social media influencers strive to alter the nation's political climate I'm Brenda Flanigan NJ Spotlight news [Music]