Hurricane Helene has been devastating for the southeastern part of the US, especially parts of Georgia and North Carolina, leaving a trail of over 200 people dead, many still missing, and massive damage to property. This has necessarily put a strain on emergency relief efforts. Add to that Hurricane Martin is headed towards Florida and is expected to arrive on Wednesday.

But relief efforts have not been helped by false statements issued by creepy Donald Trump and his new sidekick Elon Musk that the Biden administration has been slow to provide assistance, suggesting that this is because the states involved are GOP-leaning. This has been flatly contradicted by the governors of those states.

The falsehoods started quickly and came from the top. Donald Trump, freshly landed in Georgia on Monday to see the storm’s devastation, claimed that the state’s governor, Brian Kemp, had not been able to reach Joe Biden to talk about disaster aid. Kemp had already said earlier in the day that he’d spoken to the president, who offered any help the state needed and said to call him directly.

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On Fema’s rumors page, the agency notes that it isn’t confiscating property or donations, asking for cash donations or capping recovery funds at $750 per person – all claims that are floating around online and, in some cases, elevated by rightwing media and Republican politicians.

“There are many dangerous, misleading rumors spreading about Helene response, which can actively prevent survivors from getting help,” a Fema spokesperson, Jaclyn Rothenberg, said. “Our top priority is ensuring that disaster assistance is reaching people in need.”
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Elon Musk, the owner of X and key Trump ally, claimed Fema was blocking flights trying to aid the area, calling it “belligerent government incompetence”. The transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, responded: “No one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn’t block legitimate rescue and recovery flights. If you’re encountering a problem give me a call.”

Republican state officials are frustrated by these false claims.

Glenn Jacobs, the Republican mayor of Knox county, Tennessee, said that to his knowledge, no one had been confiscating supplies. “Please quit spreading those rumors as they are counterproductive to response efforts,” he said. “If everyone could maybe please put aside the hate for a bit and pitch in to help, that would be great.”
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Kevin Corbin, a Republican state senator from North Carolina, posted on Facebook a plea to his followers: “Friends can I ask a small favor? Will you all help STOP this conspiracy theory junk that is floating all over Facebook and the internet about the floods.”

Then of course there are the even nuttier conspiracy theories. One of them is based on where the storm hit hardest.

Hurricane Helene hit especially hard in heavily Republican areas of Georgia and North Carolina — a fact that could work to Donald Trump’s disadvantage in the two swing states.
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The challenge for Trump: The parts of western North Carolina and eastern Georgia that were flooded by the monster storm are largely Republican. In 2020, he won 61 percent of the vote in the North Carolina counties that were declared a disaster after Helene. He won 54 percent of the vote in Georgia’s disaster counties.

Some see this as evidence that somehow the storm was engineered to harm Republican areas.

Beyond the falsehoods with at least some link to reality, there have been suggestions that the hurricane was somehow planned or orchestrated, perhaps related to the upcoming election. This far-right fringe idea largely stayed in the darker corners of the conspiratorial internet – until Friday.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a sitting congresswoman, tweeted on Friday: “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” She did not specify who “they” referred to. She had previously tweeted a map of the areas devastated by the hurricane overlaid with an electoral map to show which way these areas have voted.

When natural disasters hit areas that are seen as not GOP-friendly, right wing politicians and preachers are quick to claim that God targeted those areas to punish them for their wickedness. But when the victims of these disasters are seen as their own, suddenly their God is nowhere to be seen to protect them from the diabolical powers of the Biden administration.