FEMA workers in Asheville, North CarolinaMadeleine Cook/FEMA/Planet Pix via Zuma

The scale and depth of the lies about Hurricane Helene have been breathtaking—and they are far from over, even as the next storm gathers force.

Hundreds of people have died or lost their homes and been displaced from Helene, as lies about the storm and recovery have emanated from politicians, conspiracy peddlers, and far-right figures. These lies have done a number of things extremely well: demonized migrants, focused blame on the government and especially FEMA, and cast doubt on the established science of human-created climate change. The false claims have been picked up and further spread by ordinary people trying to make sense of what’s happening in their communities.

Lies about Helene spread widely, amplified by established conspiracy accounts.

There were signs that the disinformation about Helene would be especially bad. Before the rain even stopped, people like Congresswoman Majorie Taylor Greene got to work tweeting about how “they” can control the weather. (She has since tripled down on the claim, by, for instance, tweeting an instantly-debunked image of patents supposedly created for weather modification.)

With the storm coming during a bitterly partisan election year, there’s obvious incentive for Donald Trump and prominent backers like Greene, Elon Musk, and the QAnon-peddling retired Army Lt. General Michael Flynn to spread lies about the current administration’s disaster response. FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell told reporters on Tuesday that misinformation around the storm has been “the worst I have ever seen.”

On Tuesday, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that studies online extremism, released a........

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