Texas floods: Misinformation across political spectrum sows confusion
WASHINGTON: Following deadly floods in Texas, misinformation from both left- and right-wing users was roiling social media, with liberals baselessly blaming staffing cuts at US weather agencies for flawed warning systems and conservatives ramping up conspiracy theories.
The catastrophic floods over the weekend have left more than a 100 people dead, including more than two dozen girls and counselors at a riverside summer camp, with rescuers racing on Tuesday to search for dozens of people still missing.
Multiple left-leaning accounts on the platform X peddled the unfounded claim that staffing cuts at the National Weather Service (NWS) by President Donald Trump's administration had "degraded" its forecasting ability.
While the NWS, like other agencies, has experienced deep staffing and budget cuts under the Trump administration, experts say its forecasters rose to the challenge despite the constraints.
"There have been claims that (weather agencies) did not foresee catastrophic (Texas) floods – but that's simply not true," Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, wrote on Bluesky.
"This was undoubtedly an extreme event but messaging rapidly escalated beginning (around) 12 (hours) prior...Locations that flooded catastrophically had at least 1-2+ hours of direct warning from NWS."
There were 22 warnings from the NWS for Kerr County and the Kerrville area, which experienced the worst flooding, according to a CBS News analysis.
"This truly was a sudden & massive event and occurred at worst possible time (middle of the night). But (the) problem, once again, was not a bad weather prediction: it was one of 'last mile' forecast/warning dissemination," Swain wrote.
Meanwhile, right-wing conspiracy theorists on social media falsely claimed that the government caused the flooding through cloud seeding, an artificial technique that stimulates rainfall.
Multiple experts have said that such weather-modification technologies were not responsible for the Texas floods.
The misinformation echoes past conspiracy theories, including claims that weather manipulation by the government caused Hurricane Milton – which struck Florida's Gulf Coast last year – and that cloud seeding efforts were behind last year's flooding in Dubai.
'Classic tale of misinformation'
"False claims from both the left and right have spread widely on social media following the catastrophic floods in Texas," Sarah Komar and Nicole Dirks from the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard wrote in a report that debunked several falsehoods.
"When extreme weather events occur, conspiracy theories about humans creating or controlling them often soon follow."
Following natural disasters, misinformation often surges across social media – fueled by accounts from across the political spectrum – as many platforms scale back content moderation and reduce their reliance on human fact-checkers.
Traditional media outlets were not immune to misinformation swirling on the Internet.
"Like other disasters before it, the (Texas) floods had attracted fast-spreading misinformation and served as a warning about the vigilance required of journalists during emotionally charged news events," said the nonprofit media institute Poynter.
Kerr County Lead , a local outlet, was forced to retract a false story about the miracle rescue of two girls who clung to a tree in the floods. The story first surfaced in social media posts that quickly went viral, but a local official said the reports were "100% inaccurate".
"Like everyone, we wanted this story to be true, but it's a classic tale of misinformation that consumes all of us during a natural disaster," Louis Amestoy, Kerr County Lead's editor, wrote in a note to readers on Sunday.
"Unfortunately, the story is not true and we are retracting it." – AFP
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
6 hours ago
- The Star
Heatwaves in Spain caused 1,180 deaths in past two months, ministry says
People walk during a heatwave, in Seville, Spain, July 2, 2025. REUTERS/Claudia Greco MADRID (Reuters) -High temperatures caused 1,180 deaths in Spain in the past two months, a sharp increase from the same period last year, the Environment Ministry said on Monday. The vast majority of people who died were over 65 and more than half were women, the data it cited showed. The most affected regions were Galicia, La Rioja, Asturias and Cantabria - all located in the northern half of the country, where traditionally cooler summer temperatures have seen a significant rise in recent years. Like other countries in Western Europe, Spain has been hit by extreme heat in recent weeks, with temperatures often topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). The 1,180 people who died of heat-related causes between May 16 and July 13 compared with 70 in the same period in 2024, the ministry said in a statement citing data from the Carlos III Health Institute. The number of deaths increased significantly in the first week in July. The data shows an event "of exceptional intensity, characterized by an unprecedented increase in average temperatures and a significant increase in mortality attributable to heatwaves", the ministry said. In the period the data covers, there were 76 red alerts for extreme heat, compared with none a year earlier. Last summer, 2,191 deaths were attributed to heat-related causes in Spain, according to data from the Carlos III Health Institute. The data from Spain follows a rapid scientific analysis published on July 9 that said around 2,300 people died of heat-related causes across 12 European cities during a severe heatwave in the 10 days to July 2. It was not immediately clear whether the study conducted by scientists at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine was using the same methodology as the Spanish data. (Reporting by Pietro Lombardi; Editing by Alison Williams)
The Star
2 days ago
- The Star
Football-Wildfire smoke forces postponement of Canadian Football League game
(Reuters) -A Canadian Football League game between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Calgary Stampeders in Regina on Friday was rescheduled after a long delay due to poor air quality caused by heavy smoke from wildfires. The announcement that the game had been rescheduled to Saturday was made more than three-and-a-half hours after the scheduled kick-off time. "(The air) was going to clear right around game time or right before game time," Roughriders CEO Craig Reynolds told reporters. Scores of wildfires have been burning across Canada since the start of May, including dozens in northern Saskatchewan. "The wind just died. It just died," Reynolds said. "And so as a result, that smoke plume just sat there." Smoke from wildfires could cause disruptions when North America hosts the soccer World Cup next year. In January, Los Angeles wildfires forced the relocation or cancellation of numerous sports events, including an NFL Wild Card playoff game between the Rams and Minnesota Viking that was moved from L.A. to Glendale, Arizona. (Reporting by Lori Ewing; editing by Clare Fallon)
The Sun
3 days ago
- The Sun
Trump visits Texas flood zone, defends government's disaster response
KERRVILLE: President Donald Trump defended the state and federal response to deadly flash flooding in Texas on Friday as he visited the stricken Hill Country region, where at least 120 people, including dozens of children, perished a week ago. During a roundtable discussion after touring Kerr County, the epicenter of the disaster, Trump praised both Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for their response, saying they both did an 'incredible job.' The Trump administration, as well as local and state officials, has faced mounting questions over whether more could have been done to protect and warn residents ahead of the flooding, which struck with astonishing speed in the pre-dawn hours on July 4, the U.S. Independence Day holiday. Trump reacted with anger when a reporter said some families affected by the floods had expressed frustration that warnings did not go out sooner. 'I think everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances,' he said. 'I don't know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that.' Some critics have questioned whether the administration's spending cuts at the National Weather Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which coordinates the U.S. government's disaster response efforts, might have exacerbated the calamity. Trump officials have said that cuts had no impact on the NWS's ability to forecast the storms, despite some vacancies in local offices. But the president has largely sidestepped questions about his plans to shrink or abolish FEMA and reassign many of its key functions to state and local governments. 'I'll tell you some other time,' Trump said on Tuesday, when asked by a reporter about FEMA. Before the most recent flooding, Kerr County declined to install an early-warning system after failing to secure state money to cover the cost. Lawrence Walker, 67, and a nearly three-decade veteran resident of Kerrville, said the county and state had not spent enough on disaster prevention, including an early-warning system. Asked about the quality of the government response, he said, 'It's been fine since the water was at 8 feet.' The Texas state legislature will convene in a special session later this month to investigate the flooding and provide disaster relief funding. Abbott has dismissed questions about whether anyone was to blame, calling that the 'word choice of losers.' Dozens still unaccounted for Search teams on Friday were still combing through muddy debris littering parts of the Hill Country in central Texas, looking for the dozens still listed as missing, but no survivors have been found since the day of the floods. Heavy rains sent a wall of water raging down the Guadalupe River early on July 4, causing the deadliest disaster of the Republican president's nearly six-month term in office. As sun poked through dark clouds on Friday morning, search crews in hard hats painstakingly walked inch-by-inch along the ruined banks of the river, marking damage and looking through wreckage. After the president arrived in Kerr County in the early afternoon, Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott drove to an area near the river, where Trump received a briefing from first responders amid debris left in the wake of the flood. The county is located in what is known as 'flash flood alley,' a region that has seen some of the country's deadliest floods. More than a foot of rain fell in less than an hour on July 4. Flood gauges showed the river's height rose from about a foot to 34 feet (10.4 meters) in a matter of hours, cascading over its banks and sweeping away trees and structures in its path. Kerr County officials say more than 160 people remain unaccounted for, although experts say that the number of people reported missing in the wake of disasters is often inflated. The dead in the county include 67 adults and at least 36 children, many of whom were campers at the nearly century-old Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer retreat on the banks of the river. Jon Moreno, 71, a longtime Kerrville resident whose property on high ground was spared, praised the government response - local and federal. He has heard the debate about what more could have been done - including sirens - but said he did not think it would have made much difference, given people's desire to build along the flood-prone riverbanks. 'It's unavoidable,' he said. 'All those people along the river - I wouldn't want to live there ... It's too dangerous.' At Stripes, a gas station in Kerrville, the building was tagged in large white letters, accusing 'Trump's Big Beautiful Bill' of cutting 'our emergency funding.' The president's massive legislative package, which cut taxes and spending, won approval from the Republican-controlled Congress last week and was signed into law by Trump on the same day that the flooding hit Texas. - REUTERS
