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Conspiracy theories about the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season

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During the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, a number of conspiracy theories have spread about the nature of hurricanes Helene and Milton and about the post-storm disaster recovery. These rumors have caused significant difficulties for first responders and official recovery workers.

Claims

Expenditure of relief funds on migrants

Donald Trump stated that FEMA had run out of funding for disaster recovery efforts, and that the agency had spent its budget on immigrant housing. FEMA has not redirected any disaster relief funding to migrant resettlement, and FEMA has continued to spend money towards relief efforts.

Weather modification

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia's 14th congressional district insinuated in a tweet that the government was using weather modification to influence the path and severity of hurricanes.

Marjorie Taylor Greene @mtgreenee X logo, a stylized letter X

Yes they can control the weather.

It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.

October 3, 2024

Proposals for weather modification to redirect hurricane paths have been found to induce feelings of anger in Florida residents. Regardless, the U.S. government retired hurricane seeding experiments in 1963 after attempts proved futile and meteorologists no longer consider it feasible.

Effects

Local officials and relief workers have had to expend resources combatting misinformation that might otherwise be used toward first response work. FEMA officials have expressed concern that survivors and others impacted by the storms are less likely to seek relief from the agency due to the misinformation.

References

  1. Rodriguez & McDaniel 2024: "'Kamala has spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants,' Trump said at a rally Thursday. Harris does not disburse FEMA funding as vice president. The claim about using disaster relief funding to house immigrants is false, a Washington Post fact check found."
  2. Hennessy-Fiske et al. 2024: "During a rally Thursday in Saginaw, Mich., former president Donald Trump suggested without evidence that FEMA had used some disaster relief money to help immigrants who are in the country illegally to resettle in the United States. There is no evidence that FEMA has diverted any disaster relief funding for this purpose."
  3. Joselow et al. 2024: "FEMA also said in a news release Saturday that federal aid provided had topped $110 million so far."
  4. Greene 2024.
  5. Klima et al. 2012, p. 1203: "Third, more anger was evoked when a hurricane was described as having changed from the initially forecasted path or strength after an attempted modification"
  6. Willoughby et al. 1985, p. 513: "STORMFURY itself, however, had two fatal flaws: it was neither microphysically nor statistically feasible. Observational evidence indicates that seeding in hurricanes would be ineffective because they contain too little supercooled water and too much natural ice. Moreover, the expected results of seeding are often indistinguishable from naturally occurring intensity changes."
  7. American Meteorological Society 1998, p. 2771: "No sound physical hypotheses exist for the modification of hurricanes, tornadoes, or damaging winds in general, and no related scientific experimentation has been conducted in the past 20 years."
  8. Godfrey 2024: "The practical effect of these falsehoods is that local officials have to spend precious time and energy combatting misinformation, rather than recovery efforts."
  9. Aton & Waldman 2024: "'The misinformation is extremely damaging to the response efforts from Helene and from any disaster,' said. 'It is reducing the likelihood that survivors will come to FEMA in a trusting way to register for assistance.'"

Bibliography

Academic works

Newspapers

Primary sources

External links

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