Video shows Hurricane Ian, not Helene
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"I'll never understand you idiots that live in Florida in the center of hurricane pathways…. This is from hurricane Helene right now, storm surge is like 15-20ft," says a September 25, 2024 X post with hundreds of interactions.
Helene made landfall September 26 on the Florida Panhandle as a dangerous Category 4 hurricane, leaving a trail of death and destruction. The National Weather Service warned of "catastrophic and potentially life-threatening" flooding as the storm headed inland and weakened.
AFP and other news organizations captured dramatic images of the destruction.
But the video shared on X is unrelated to Hurricane Helene.
A watermark on the clip says "Max Olson Chasing." Olson, a self-described "storm chaser," originally posted the segment September 29, 2022 on X (archived here).
"Absolutely heartbreaking footage captured by our surge probe of catastrophic storm surge washing away homes. I have never seen anything like this," Olson said in the caption, linking to a longer YouTube video (archived here).
Absolutely heartbreaking footage captured by our surge probe of catastrophic storm surge washing away homes. I have never seen anything like this. We have now left the area as hoards of emergency crew have arrived. #HurricaneIan
— Max Olson (@MesoMax919) September 29, 2022
FULL VIDEO - https://t.co/DOJJn2VThVpic.twitter.com/iPBUyVKw4s
Some X users shared the same clip in context while attempting to highlight the hazards of storm surges. The X user sharing the video out of context followed up a day later, saying: "Oh my bad it's from 2022 -- okay lol my point still stands hahah."
A reverse image search using keyframes from the video found the same footage in multiple 2022 news reports about Hurricane Ian, which killed dozens of people and was the third costliest US weather disaster.
AFP has fat-checked other misinformation about natural disasters here, here and here.
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