US official says ‘dangerous disinformation’ hampers storm recovery

Unlock the US Election Countdown newsletter for free

The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House

The head of the US agency coordinating relief efforts for Hurricane Helene attacked “dangerous” disinformation as she rejected claims by Donald Trump that there was no money for storm victims because it had been spent on illegal migrants.

“This kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people,” said Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell in an ABC interview.

“You know, it’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people and that’s what we’re here to do.”

Criswell said rampant misinformation had created “a truly dangerous narrative” that instils “fear” both in those trying to help and those seeking it.

“People need resources, and we need them to get into the system,” said Criswell. “It’s just, you know, a shame that people are sitting — sitting home on their comfortable couches — while we have thousands of people here on the ground that have left their own families to be able to help those in need.”

Hurricane Helene has ravaged the south-east of the US and left at least 227 dead, according to the Associated Press. Fema says it has already spent $110mn in federal assistance to provide food, water and electricity to victims.

Kamala Harris and Trump have travelled to Georgia and North Carolina, two crucial swing states devastated by Helene, to witness recovery efforts.

The Republican presidential nominee has compared those efforts to the widely panned response by the George W Bush administration to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that killed 1,392 people.

Trump told a crowd in Pennsylvania on Saturday night that Helene was Harris’ “Katrina” moment.

At a rally in Michigan on October 3, Trump said the Biden/Harris administration “stole the Fema money just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them.”

“This is the worst response in the history of hurricanes.”

Fact-checkers at the Washington Post noted that in 2019 the Trump administration drew $271mn from Department of Homeland Security programmes, including $155mn for disaster relief, to pay for services for asylum seekers.

In a plea for additional money from Congress, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said this week that Fema would meet “immediate needs” but that the agency he oversees did not have enough money to make it through hurricane season.

Criswell on Sunday said that Fema is “absolutely ready” for the next storm; Tropical Storm Milton is forecast to “intensify” to be “at or near major hurricane strength” when it hits Florida this week, according to the National Hurricane Center. 

The Trump campaign has claimed that Fema spent so much paying for migrant housing that it could only afford to give $750 to disaster survivors.

“They’re offering them $750 to people whose homes have been washed away and yet we send tens of billions of dollars to foreign countries that most people have never heard of,” said Trump at the campaign rally Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he survived an assassination attempt in July.

Fema has set up a “rumour page” to reject the claim, urging people to apply both for Serious Needs Assistance, which provides that cash, and others.

Trump has also claimed without evidence that North Carolina’s Democratic Governor Roy Cooper has steered aid clear of Republican areas.

Elon Musk, a Trump backer who spoke at the Butler rally, has echoed Trump’s falsehoods on his platform X. He recently told his 200mn followers that Fema has committed “treason” using “up its budget ferrying illegals into the country instead of saving American lives”.

Josh Hallgreen, a Trump supporter who attended the rally, said that when the candidate was president “things were taken care of a hell of a lot quicker.”

He criticised the Biden/Harris administration’s “lack of response to the disasters . . . between the wars that are going on overseas and the hurricane”.