“Out Hunting FEMA”: Conspiracy Theories Take (Possibly) Corporeal Form, Hinder Hurricane Relief Efforts

Say that the people coming to help recover from a disaster are actually enemies loudly enough, and someone is bound to believe you.

Over the weekend, the dark and absurdist rhetoric and conspiracy theories surrounding hurricanes Helene and Milton and FEMA’s ongoing recovery efforts took physical form at least enough to throw that recovery at least a little bit off balance. FEMA was forced to make “some operational adjustments” in North Carolina, thanks to a deeply disturbing report.

“FEMA has advised all federal responders Rutherford County, NC, to stand down and evacuate the county immediately,” an email from a Forest Service official warned to several government agencies, according to reporting from the Washington Post. The email said that National Guard troops had spotted two trucks full of “armed militia” who were “out hunting FEMA.”

As a result, aid to parts of Rutherford County and elsewhere was at least temporarily paused. Since then, the actual existence of such trucks of lunatics has not been confirmed, and a North Carolina National Guard statement disputes such an encounter. And while the literal presence or absence of armed militias “hunting” federal recovery workers is obviously important, the realistic nature of the threat was enough to change what the agency is doing.

Everyone from Barack Obama to local Republican officials have pleaded with and harangued the biggest purveyors of post-hurricane bullshit, but the cat’s clearly out of the bag. Marjorie Taylor-Greene is one thing, but when Donald Trump and J.D. Vance gleefully join in the misinformation dog pile there’s no clear way out of it until the recovery efforts themselves begin to fade — the chronic phase of which could take years. “The contours of this misinformation are unlike anything we’ve seen before,” one Biden administration official told CNN.

Whether or not violence-hungry militias are out roaming North Carolina’s or Florida’s ravaged streets, the point of the rhetoric is to make such things seem possible. The stochastic terrorism behind a half-baked riff on X or Fox News doesn’t always lead to an armed showdown, but it could, and that’s enough.