Hurricanes Milton and Helene devastated large parts of the United States. But residents cleaning up waterlogged homes and businesses face another challenge as they recover that shows no sign of going away: viral disinformation.

There is a rumor that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is capping payouts to disaster survivors at $750. False, says a fact-checking page the agency set up.

What about the statement that FEMA is preventing private planes from landing in affected areas to deliver supplies? Also wrong.

These rumors have become political, with some Republican politicians, including former President Donald Trump, repeating them to large audiences. As FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell recently said, the swirl of misinformation is “absolutely the worst I’ve ever seen.”

“Misinformation is not uncommon during disasters. You’re making quick progress. “People see things that end up not being true,” said Juliette Kayyem, a crisis management expert at Harvard and deputy secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration Explained todayis Sean Rameswaram. “I think that what we are experiencing now is, in many ways, deliberate lying.” Kayyem is also the author of the book The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in a Time of Disaster.

Below is an excerpt from their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s a lot more in the full podcast, so give that a listen Explained today wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.

Can you just tell people who may have missed this factual disaster what’s going on?

Looking at the atmosphere of the response on social media, there are many false facts about how the Biden administration is responding, about basic disaster response capabilities and rules. They are then amplified by Donald Trump and Elon Musk in particular, creating their own reality which then has to be crushed by already overburdened first responders, emergency managers and FEMA, who have set up a rumor page on their website just to combat this crap.

One example is Donald Trump, who repeatedly says that the money that was supposed to go to Americans affected by the disaster was used exclusively to house illegal immigrants. Not true. There was a separate item on migrant assistance and shelter that Congress passed. This money was sent to FEMA for administration, but it did not replace disaster management funding. It didn’t even overlap. This is the same body that distributes these funds.

This creates a false divide between immigrants who won’t get that money and Americans who may be angry because the money they need for disaster relief isn’t available. They demoralize emergency managers and volunteers. You’re putting them in danger. I’ve talked to people at FEMA about what’s happening on the ground. They are sending people in larger numbers because they are worried about what the response will be. Most importantly, it leaves victims confused about what they should do, what they have access to, and what is available to them.

They say Donald Trump is spreading some of this misinformation. Where does he do it?

At his rallies; on social media. At a recent rally, he suggested that resources weren’t going to red states, but that more Republicans would die. There is simply no factual basis for it.

What’s interesting is that Republican governors are rejecting this narrative and saying they’re getting the resources they want. They know they must work with the federal government to protect their citizens and initiate this recovery.

One of the most vile and disgusting rumors spread in communications concerns whether FEMA would take you home. FEMA has a process by which they can purchase your home. It is a very small program. If you, the homeowner, and FEMA agree on a fair market value and you no longer want to live there because it flooded four years in a row, then it is a rational transactional decision.

This narrative that they’re going to take you home – what does that mean? Well, it makes people very nervous about leaving their home. And so now you hear people saying, “I won’t leave because if I leave my home the government will take it away from me.” These are the real effects of all these lies.

And you’re saying that this is being reinforced not only by other Republican politicians, but also by the owner of Twitter?

Yes. He is probably the biggest amplifier of disinformation, retweeting things that are clearly false.

They try to create divisions in communities in two ways. One of them is the divide between citizen and government, which has always been a tactic of this wing of MAGA-ism. Then there is also the gap between citizens and their neighbors. This leads to chaos, confusion and division.

I think the reason there is such concerted opposition from Republican governors, but also FEMA and others who are calling for this, is because they know it can impact their ability to respond. I should say that this comes at a time when our communications networks are under stress. Communication is down. It is difficult to communicate with people. And so this vacuum is filled by this harmfulness, which has life-threatening consequences.

I still remember social media being useful to people during Hurricane Sandy. It was useful for people going through Sandy, it was useful for government agencies to get information out. Is the era of social media as a helpful tool in a disaster over?

It’s over. Elon Musk broke “disaster Twitter.”

The birth of Twitter, the moment the founder realized its usefulness, was during a small earthquake in San Francisco. It was just one of those other social media platforms. But it was this authenticated, real-time information flowing in people’s feeds that caused Twitter’s leadership to begin taking its responsibility for disaster very seriously.

There was a whole system, including the government, that relied on Twitter to spread good information, and that whole system is down. This is the first domestic disaster where it is abundantly clear that Twitter is failing disaster management across the board.

Is the misinformation and disinformation surrounding Milton as bad as what we saw after Helene?

They were more likely to see it online than, for example, from the political leadership.

They have seen much more aggressive pushback from the government (and FEMA). They were sort of finished now. Helene was – I think they kind of got caught (by surprise). So you saw a lot of outreach, a lot of pushback against the misinformation and even from (Florida Gov. Ron) DeSantis pushing back on some of it.

Do you think this will make an agency like FEMA better prepared for the next hurricane and, if you will, the next storm of misinformation?

Yes, I believe so when it comes to misinformation and lies. I think it will just be part of your emergency management plan. They will counter the rumors in a very formal manner. This was done before, but it was very fragmented. I saw language from FEMA speakers that I had never seen before, basically just telling the lies, especially on social media. So they’re using the language, sort of the permissive language of social media, which I think is important, rather than the more formal language of government.

I think the hype around Milton created a feeling that it could destroy Tampa. And it’s still early, but I don’t think that’s happened. After an incident like this, do you think this confirms and fuels the misinformation machine?

Yes, it is seen as an exaggeration as “the government is incompetent and doesn’t know what it is doing.” I think the next evacuation will be more difficult if you don’t see the kind of damage and death that everyone was worried about . This is common and has a name: the readiness paradox.

When you’re ready, you prepare homes, you prepare communities, you cause them to evacuate, and the thing comes through and the damage is less than you feared – that’s why you wanted the evacuation. That’s why you wanted the houses to be finished.

People will say, “Why were you so worried anyway?” In other words, the government’s response, which may have minimized harm and death, may paradoxically well be seen as wrong.

Could FEMA do a better job during Helene and now Milton?

It’s hard for me to know at the moment. In some ways, FEMA’s biggest challenge will be recovery. How quickly can they deploy resources?

With Helene, the biggest lesson we learned is how to communicate risk to Americans who may not feel at risk. In retrospect, the only warnings issued were a flood warning for communities where flooding could occur. This is probably because people remember that the ground was heavily saturated by rainfall in the previous days. And I wonder if the flood warning will subsequently encourage people to move? Perhaps we should think about how we communicate risk, especially as we face events that have no real historical precedent.