As southern cities clean up the remnants of Hurricane Helene, several Republican lawmakers have also been tasked with cleaning up misinformation spread by some of their fellow GOP colleagues.
Shortly after Helene made landfall last month, inaccurate claims began to spread online about how the storm originated and whether it could target certain communities. Among those spreading the unsubstantiated claims was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who suggested the hurricane was targeting areas with predominantly Republican populations.
“Yes they can control the weather,” Greene said in a post on X, without clarifying who “they” is in reference to. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”
The post sparked rumors online about whether Democrats can control the strength of hurricanes and the path of which they travel, prompting GOP lawmakers representing cities affected by Helene to correct the record.
“NEW[S] FLASH —> Humans cannot create or control hurricanes,” said Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), who represents Florida’s 28th Congressional District spanning the southwestern Miami area and the Florida Keys. “Anyone who thinks they can, needs to have their head examined.”
Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), whose North Carolina district was also hit by the storm, even went so far as to issue an extensive press release debunking a slew of inaccurate claims about Hurricane Helene, including a blurb noting that “nobody can control the weather.”
“Charles Konrad, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southeast Regional Climate Center, has confirmed that no one has the technology or ability to geoengineer a hurricane,” Edwards wrote. “Current geoengineering technology can serve as a large-scale intervention to mitigate the negative consequences of naturally occurring weather phenomena, but it cannot be used to create or manipulate hurricanes.”
Although there have been previous NOAA projects to experiment with weakening existing hurricanes, those efforts ended decades ago — and large storms such as hurricanes cannot be artificially created by humans.
Edwards fact-checked several other “outrageous rumors” about the hurricane and the response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“FEMA is NOT stopping trucks or vehicles with donations, confiscating or seizing supplies, or otherwise turning away donations,” Edwards wrote. “FEMA has NOT diverted disaster response funding to the border or foreign aid. … FEMA is NOT going to run out of money.”
Concerns that FEMA would run out of money for disaster relief largely stem from comments by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last week when he warned that although the agency could meet immediate needs, it may not have enough funding to make it through the next few months.
In its short-term spending deal passed last month, Congress approved a provision to replenish FEMA’s funding ahead of the hurricane season. The bill also gave the federal agency the ability to request more money if needed.
FEMA also responded to concerns that it would run out of funds on a fact-check website page, noting that it has “enough funding to support Hurricane Helene efforts and FEMA has what it needs for immediate response and recovery efforts.”
The agency also reiterated that the FEMA director has the authority to spend what is allocated in the president’s budget but noted that “we’re not out of hurricane season yet so we need to keep a close eye on it.”
Other GOP lawmakers have dispelled those rumors, even as some Fox News hosts asserted that FEMA is already out of money. One of those exchanges occurred on Maria Bartiromo’s show, during which Rep. French Hill (R-AR) corrected claims about the agency being out of money.
“FEMA is not out of money, and this was made clear by the inspector general report saying Mayorkas has access to nearly $8 billion of funding from the FEMA disaster relief funds accumulated since 2012,” Hill said. “They have the money to take care of Florida, take care of North Carolina, and take care of Georgia. They need to get about delivering it and listening to what their governors are asking and meeting those governors’ requests.”
Hill also pushed back on claims that FEMA diverted disaster relief funds to illegal immigrants or border-related matters, noting that those funds are in a “completely different account.”
That assertion has been promoted by a number of Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, who has repeated the claim several times.
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Other claims by Trump have also been debunked by GOP lawmakers, including comments on Monday that President Joe Biden had been missing calls from Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) related to hurricane relief. However, that came in direct contradiction to Kemp’s comments hours earlier that he had already spoken with Biden after he initially missed a call from the president. The governor said he called the president back right away and the two had a conversation.
Biden called out both Trump and Greene on Wednesday for “the onslaught of lies” about the responses to Hurricane Helene and incoming Hurricane Milton.