In the mountains of North Carolina, real frustrations over federal aid for victims of Hurricane Helene have been supercharged by a whirlwind of lies and misinformation — fueled in part by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Ten days after Helene carved a path of destruction through the southeastern United States, many residents are still cut off — from federal assistance, from electricity and running water, and, crucially, from accurate information.
Trump and others have poured false claims and conspiracy theories into that vacuum, targeting in particular the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) — which, when a US state asks for help, puts the power of the federal government behind the disaster response.
The result? Anger, on top of grief, loss and devastation.
“FEMA should have been here, boots on the ground,” Janet Musselwhite, a resident of Pensacola, North Carolina, which was hit hard by the storm, tells AFP.
The same thing happened after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, she said. “They waited and they waited and people died, and that’s what has happened here.”
Helene is now the deadliest storm to have struck the US mainland since Katrina, with a death toll of more than 230 people.
The United States has distributed more than $210 million in federal aid and dispatched nearly 7,000 emergency response personnel to assist with relief efforts across the US southeast, according to the White House.
But Trump and his Republican party have accused the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — who is also Trump’s rival for the White House in November’s election — of misappropriating FEMA funds for migrants.
It’s a false claim that has been repeatedly debunked, and that Harris rejected on Monday as “extraordinarily irresponsible.”
But it’s just one in a slew of falsehoods and rumors about the federal response that FEMA’s chief has slammed as “dangerous.”
The stakes could not be higher: even as FEMA and the Biden-Harris administration struggle to combat the misinformation and reach those in need, another storm, potentially catastrophic Hurricane Milton, is roaring towards Florida.
But the political stakes have also been thrown into stark relief: North Carolina and neighboring Georgia, which was also hit by Helene, are among a handful of “swing states” that will play a decisive role in whether Harris or Trump wins the White House in one month.
– Aid claims –
Helene survivors in North Carolina told AFP that the most impactful aid came from individual volunteers who helped deliver bottled water and food.
“Locals have been wonderful,” Musselwhite said.
“Now we’re hearing that there might not be very much FEMA money, because it was given to immigrants,” she added, echoing Trump’s falsehood.
“No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. None,” the White House has said.
In the rural, largely conservative, mountainous areas of western North Carolina devastated by Helene, the false claims tap into the real challenges victims have faced with accessing federal aid.
Shelby Holzhauser, a 23-year-old preschool teacher in nearby Swannanoa, told AFP she has been encouraged to apply for disaster relief and unemployment insurance.
While she said the response from authorities has “been great,” she has struggled to complete the application process because “it’s all online” — in an area where cell and internet service has been largely knocked out.
“From what I’ve heard, FEMA isn’t really — they’re not letting anyone in to get supplies to everyone,” Holzhauser said, repeating another misleading claim — this one propagated by billionaire Elon Musk, a Trump ally and the owner of social media platform X, where much of the misinformation has swirled.
– ‘It’s been really hard’ –
Veterinary technician Audria Pace, working at a makeshift vet clinic in Swannanoa, decried the impact misinformation has had on Helene’s survivors.
“It’s been really hard, because people have all these opinions, and if you have got time to share your hateful opinion, then you have time to help,” she told AFP.
In one extreme example, “somebody has even gone as far to say that Biden manufactured this to kill Trump voters, that this is a red state, and this is something that people are left to die because they’re Trump voters,” Pace said.
Pace, who identifies as liberal, criticized the exploitation of the disaster for political purposes.
“They have no idea what’s happening here,” she said. “We are gathering our dead. We are tending our hearts. This is not helping.”
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