‘The worst I have ever seen’: Disinformation chaos hammers FEMA

Misinformation is beginning to take a toll on hurricane responders and survivors alike, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Tuesday as another massive storm headed for the Southeast.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said the swirl of false conspiracy theories around Hurricane Helene is dissuading survivors from seeking help and hurting morale among responders.

“It is absolutely the worst I have ever seen,” Criswell told reporters on a Tuesday morning call.

“It's creating distrust in the federal government, but also the state government, and we have so many first responders that have been working to go out and help these communities," she added.

The agency has long had a rumor control page to combat the kind of scams that often flourish after a disaster, she added. “I anticipated some of this, but not to the extent that we’re seeing.”

Many of the falsehoods can be traced back to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his supporters, who have baselessly accused federal responders of diverting disaster money to immigrants.

Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO and ascendant GOP megadonor, has also amplified false claims of feds interfering with hurricane recovery.

At a separate event Tuesday, President Joe Biden also warned of the threat of disinformation. And he said it was “un-American” to spread disaster falsehoods.

"Those who do it, do it to try to damage the administration,” Biden said at a hurricane briefing at the White House. “We can take care of ourselves, but it misleads people, it puts people in circumstances where they panic, where they really, really, really worry and think 'we're not being taken care of.' ... It's un-American, it really is; people are scared to death, people know their lives are at stake."

Criswell compared the atmosphere around Hurricane Helene to the misinformation that proliferated after the 2023 Maui wildfires. Researchers later linked foreign entities to the spread of disinformation around that.

Harris ad, talk of hearings

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Tuesday jumped on the Trump camp’s misinformation campaign, unleashing a new ad across swing states in which former Trump administration officials slam the Republican nominee for having hesitated to provide disaster aid while he was president to certain states that he considered politically hostile, as POLITICO’s E&E News previously reported .

The ad is part of a $370 million fall media push by the Harris campaign and is the first to center on disaster relief politics as the Gulf Coast prepares for what will be its third hurricane in a month.

“[Trump] would suggest not giving disaster relief to states that hadn’t voted for him,” Kevin Carroll, a former senior counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, said in the one-minute ad.

“This isn’t normal,” added Olivia Troye, former White House homeland security adviser. “The job of the president is to protect Americans — regardless of politics.”

Meanwhile, members of Congress are continuing to chime in on FEMA’s response to Hurricane Helene and its preparations for Hurricane Milton.

Numerous Republicans have taken to social media and cable news to express their displeasure with FEMA’s ongoing relief work, and many have repeated misinformation about the response efforts.

More than two dozen lawmakers on both sides of the aisle — many of them from states recently impacted by major storms — have called for Congress to pass supplemental disaster relief funding as soon as possible.

Some have called for an early return from their six-week preelection recess, though congressional leaders have so far tried to tamp down those suggestions, noting that FEMA has enough resources to last several more weeks.

The debates over disaster funding could boil over when Congress returns after the November elections, especially if more disasters hit. Lawmakers could continue to clash over disaster needs, and FEMA officials will be a sure target for Republicans.

House Oversight and Accountability Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said Tuesday on Fox News that he wants "a complete review of FEMA" and is considering calling on Criswell to testify at a hearing in mid-November.