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Kill them, they control the weather. American meteorologists receive death threats because of hurricanes

Hurricane Helene swept through six states two weeks ago and claimed hundreds of lives, after which Hurricane Milton hit Florida in the middle. However, widespread misinformation is now limiting the authorities’ ability to help communities affected by the hurricane, Deanne Criswell, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), told The Guardian.

Michigan meteorologist Katie Nickolaou said that the impact of these conspiracies is felt most strongly by her and her colleagues, who daily deal with false reports that Category 6 hurricanes are raging in the US, that they are created and controlled by the government or meteorologists themselves – and with them attack the supporting states Republicans – and that the scientists responsible for it should be killed and their radar equipment destroyed.

“I have never seen a storm generate so much misinformation. We are constantly extinguishing erroneous information everywhere. A lot of people have told me that I created the hurricane and I control it. Some people think we control the weather. I had to warn them that the hurricane has the energy of 10,000 nuclear bombs and we cannot even hope to control it. But things have shifted to more violent rhetoric, especially when people say that the creators of Hurricane Milton should be killed,” Nickolaou described the situation.

One of the messages this meteorologist received said: “Hold the breath of those who created them (hurricanes) and their allies”. “Murdering meteorologists will not stop hurricanes. I can’t believe that I had to write this,” Nickolaou replied to the message.

“People call me a lot of vulgar words. They tell me to shut up and sit down. People who think it’s okay to destroy Doppler radar because they think it controls the weather. Dealing with it eats up a lot of work and free time. It’s very tiring,” she added.

Hurricane as an attack

Already after the impact of Helena, a large number of conspiracy theories began to spread, and after the formation of Hurricane Milton, they gained even more strength. Former US President Donald Trump is particularly fond of repeating the lie that FEMA has no money for hurricane survivors because it was given to illegal immigrants. Thus, posts demanding the “arrest, shooting or hanging” of employees of this agency began to spread on social networks.

Several of Trump’s closest collaborators are also spreading the more extreme conspiracy theory that hurricanes are targeted attacks by the Democratic administration. “Hurricane Helene was an attack caused by weather manipulation,” claims, for example, a video shared by Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

This sharp rise in untruths about hurricanes drew a sharp response from the current president, Joe Biden, when he blamed Donald Trump for it and told him to stop being annoying. “It’s more than ridiculous. It’s so stupid. It has to stop,” Biden said of the weather control theories.

Humanity currently only has the ability to make hurricanes worse by burning fossil fuels, which leads to warming of the oceans, which then give hurricanes more energy. However, he cannot create them, control them or direct them in a certain direction. Funds to help people affected by the hurricane are, in turn, completely separate from funds intended to help migrants.

We’re just trying to protect people

According to former TV meteorologist Chris Gloninger, disinformation surrounding hurricanes Helene and Milton is just a significant symptom of a trend in which the public is increasingly getting information from extremist personalities on the Internet rather than from qualified experts. He himself reportedly regularly faced death threats during his career because he spoke about climate change.

“The modern Republican Party has an army of people with huge social media followings who just spread misinformation. My former colleagues and I receive threats and reports that we are sending hurricanes to states that support Republicans. It’s stunning. I have never experienced anything like this in any other disaster. This is how meteorologists reach the point of burnout. What other profession faces attacks just for doing its job? We only try to protect people and property during extreme weather,” added Gloninger.