Late in the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, misinformation and conspiracy theories spread about the nature of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, and about the post-storm disaster recoveries. False information was spread by multiple politicians including Donald Trump, who was the 2024 Republican presidential candidate, and congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. These widespread rumors caused difficulties for first responders and official recovery workers, hampering rescue efforts, and some officials were subject to threats of violence. The White House and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued statements in response to these claims, and investigative hearings that involved efforts to combat this misinformation.
Background
In early 2024, hurricane forecasters predicted a highly-active season, citing the La Niña effect and warm sea surface temperatures.: "This year's hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 is going to be even worse, according to a University of Arizona hurricane prediction model." After the earliest-forming Category 5 hurricane on record, Hurricane Beryl, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintained this prediction through August.: The hurricane season got off to an early and violent start with Hurricane Beryl, the earliest category-5 Atlantic hurricane on record,' said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. "NOAA's update to the hurricane seasonal outlook is an important reminder that the peak of hurricane season is right around the corner, when historically the most significant impacts from hurricanes and tropical storms tend to occur. In what was expected to be the peak season, however, there were few storms, "Then, what should have been the busiest part of the season was instead eerily quiet. It was 'fairly surprising,' Emily Bercos-Hickey, a research scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told me." and some called the season a "bust".: "Back around the traditional ramp up to the hurricane season peak in early September, lots was written about the hurricane season 'bust' – alluding to what forecasters predicted to be one of the busiest hurricane seasons on record.
In late September and early October, Hurricanes Helene and Milton developed as Category 4 and 5 hurricanes, respectively, breaking the lull.: "Then, beginning late last month, came a tremendous burst of activity: Hurricane Helene, which broke storm-surge records in Florida and dropped devastating rains far inland; a flurry of named storms that spun up in quick succession; and now Milton." Helene caused extensive damage across the Southeastern United States, becoming the deadliest hurricane to strike the US mainland since Hurricane Katrina.: "The death toll wreaked on the Southeast U.S. by Hurricane Helene, as tracked by CNN, reached 180 on Wednesday morning, October 2. The toll pushes Helene above 2022's Hurricane Ian (156 U.S. deaths) and makes it one of the three deadliest hurricanes of the past half-century across U.S. states and territories. The only hurricanes in that period that took more lives than Helene were Katrina (2005) and Maria (2017)." In particular, the hurricane caused flooding in western North Carolina, hundreds of miles from the coast;: "Hurricane Helene's destructive path tore across several states, causing the ocean surge on the Florida coast and cutting off power supplies in Georgia. But the heaviest rainfall, and some of the worst damage, was hundreds of miles from where the storm made landfall." NOAA described this unusually high inland rainfall as a "worst-case scenario" for the region.: "This event is close to, if not a worse-case [sic] scenario meteorologically speaking, for western North Carolina. The full extent of the damages is still being realized and will take months to years to document and recover from." Milton broke the National Weather Service's record for rapid intensification, strengthening to a Category 5 and increasing its wind speeds by in 24 hours.: "The storm underwent an extremely rapid intensification as it churned across the Gulf, gaining more than in wind speeds over the course of just 24 hours. It shattered the scientific definition of rapid intensification, which the National Weather Service describes as an increase of in a single day." The season became the second costliest in history, with $190 billion in damages,: "The season is also the second costliest in history, with ~190 billion U.S. dollars lost in damage." and broke records for amount of storm activity in the later period of a hurricane season.: "Twelve named storms formed after the climatological peak of the season in early September. Seven hurricanes formed in the Atlantic since September 25 — the most on record for this period."
Claims Weather modification
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia's 14th congressional district claimed in a tweet on October 3 that it is possible to use weather modification to influence hurricanes.: "[Rep. Marjorie Taylor] Greene, after spending years trying to distance herself from her infamous 2018 remarks on social media blaming wildfires on 'Jewish Space Lasers,' is now using this climate emergency to double down on weather conspiracies and lasers. While Greene stopped short of blaming Jews for the hurricanes, she has promoted conspiracies that have a history of being steeped in antisemitism. 'Yes they can control the weather,' Greene wrote on X on October 3 about the hurricanes, without specifying who 'they' are. 'It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done. Three days later, Greene made another post claiming weather modification was possible and in use.: "She appeared to double down on these comments with a post on Saturday, sharing a clip from a 2013 CBS News broadcast about experimental efforts to induce rain and lightning using lasers. 'CBS, nine years ago, talked about lasers controlling the weather,' Greene wrote, apparently mistaking the year of the broadcast." Prominent right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones made claims that Hurricanes Milton and Helene were "weather weapons" created by the US government. Meteorologists Matthew Cappucci, Katie Nickolaou, and James Spann claimed to have received threats, accusing them of concealing that the US government was controlling the hurricane.
Claims that the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) research project in Alaska can modify the weather have existed since at least 2012. Agence France-Presse reported on popular social media posts claiming that the device created the storm; however, a research scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which runs the project, stated that is too low-powered to control weather.: "HAARP attracts more attention than the average scientific research facility, likely because of its focus on an obscure area of the atmosphere called the ionosphere. This has led to misunderstandings about the purpose of the HAARP facility, said Chris Fallen, UAF research assistant professor in space physics and aeronomy. HAARP cannot control the weather, contrary to one conspiracy theory. It has too little power and affects a different part of the atmosphere, Fallen said." Likewise, the nationwide weather radar system known as Next-Generation Radar (NEXRAD) was the subject of claims that it could be used to control weather patterns.: "For example, on 30 September 2024 a video was shared on Facebook, gathering over 27,000 interactions after claiming that 'Hurricane Helene's path and behavior could have been manipulated by NEXRAD frequency transmissions'." As a radar system it emits only a small amount of energy, which NOAA's Hurricane Research Division states is too low to influence weather.: "For additional insight, we also contacted Shirley Murillo, Deputy Director of NOAA's Hurricane Research Division, who commented: 'The amount of energy sent out by NEXRAD radars is vanishingly small compared to the amount of energy expended in a hurricane. The hurricane consists solely of air and water and the beam either just passes through or is partially reflected back by small water drops. It doesn’t have enough energy to move even those tiny drops.
In research prior to the 2024 season, researchers have considered the social and ethical impacts of hurricane modification. In 2012, a survey found that proposals for weather modification to redirect hurricane paths induced feelings of anger in Florida residents.: "Third, more anger was evoked when a hurricane was described as having changed from the initially forecasted path or strength after an attempted modification" The US government retired hurricane seeding experiments in 1983 after attempts proved futile: "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." and in 1998 the American Meteorological Society adopted an official position considering it unfeasible.
FEMA blocking aid