When misinformation and meteorology collide: Viral rumors take over during Helene

FIRST of all, we must acknowledge that as bad as things got in Savannah for Hurricane Helene, we obviously don’t have it nearly as bad as so many people further up the storm’s path, in North Carolina and Tennessee. That’s the most important point anyone can make.

But it was an, um, interesting experience here in Savannah, to say the least, and I wanted to talk about a widespread but little-discussed topic: Misinformation, and how frighteningly rapidly it spread here during Helene.

To be clear: I’m not talking about today’s typical glib definition of misinformation, which 90 percent of the time is used to mean “someone else’s political opinion I differ with.”

Democracy is about debate, and debate is about disagreement. Something’s not necessarily misinformation just because you disagree with it.

I’m talking here about literal misinformation, as in information that is intrinsically false and misleading on its face, and which might lead to a dangerous conclusion.

With the internet down in most all parts of the local area for days on end, our phones were pretty much all most of us had in the way of connecting with the outside world.

And the way most people over 35 or so congregate on their phones today is, sadly, via Facebook, a word that by now is virtually a synonym for “misinformation.”

Times of crisis bring out the best and the worst in people in general, but as far as social media is concerned it just seems to bring out the worst.

First let’s talk about the “second Helene,” or the massively shared graphic that showed a phantom second hurricane taking the exact same track as Helene, due to hit any minute now.

This brazenly mendacious graphic was virally shared by a previously obscure Facebook page called “Augusta Moves,” which is apparently the page of a nightclub in Augusta, Ga.

Or should I say, was the page of a nightclub in Augusta, Ga., as it is now no longer active. Did the owner deactivate it, or was it always intended as an agent of misinformation to sow panic? That I do not know, but it’s worth pondering.

I also do not know how “Augusta Moves” managed to crack the algorithmic code of Facebook so effectively as to be, for a brief time, probably the most viral page in the southeast United States.

But crack it they did, and I was shocked – and by shocked I mean my jaw literally dropped – by how many Facebook friends, with jobs and careers and families and responsibilities, breathlessly shared this obviously, manically, dangerously inaccurate information.

It didn’t seem to occur to them before hitting the Share button to wonder how an obscure “entertainment” page in the backwater of Augusta, Ga., knew a Cat 4 storm was about to hit exactly where Helene hit – but no other media outlets nor the federal government were reporting it at all!

I admit, it’s almost funny looking back on it. So what’s the harm? Well, a lot, if you’re like most Americans and believe whatever you see on social media, and think that’s your cue to pack up the car and the kids and head for the hills – which in the case of Hurricane Helene was the literal worst place you could go.

At the very least, things like this cause panic, and panic is always the worst thing in a time of crisis.

On a less malicious note was the maddeningly fast spread of misinformation that all of Chatham County was under a Boil Water Advisory, which it decidedly was not.

This misinformation was at least partially based on actual fact, namely that customers of a small, privatized water system with the unfortunately generic name of Water Utility Management were indeed under a Boil Water Advisory for a few days.

However, customers in the vast majority of Chatham County, including all City of Savannah residents, were unaffected and had no Boil Water Advisory at all, of any kind.

But the WTOC news post that became viral literally within a few minutes on Sunday, Sept. 29 made little effort to enlighten readers on the distinction between water systems, whether out of haste or because they simply didn’t know the difference. My guess is the A-Team probably wasn’t in the newsroom on a Sunday afternoon.

Their report was technically correct. But a couple of minutes of extra attention might have prompted them make it very clear in the headline and the accompanying post that the Advisory was limited to a small number of people.

Instead, you had to go to the end of the story to read the most important information. In a time of crisis this is unacceptable.

Does this qualify as “misinformation,” or just lazy journalism? Or in WTOC’s defense, lazy readers who didn’t bother reading the entire story to the end? That’s a subject for debate, and it’s probably an all-of-the-above situation.

But in any case, within the space of about 15 minutes my entire Facebook feed – and I’m only slightly exaggerating – was a constant, endless doom-scroll of people sharing the Boil Water Advisory in a clear state of abject panic. This went on for hours.

I have always been the poster child of “No good deed goes unpunished.” I am that dumbass who always tries to set the record straight and just ends up being someone’s idea of the bad guy. It’s a defect I have.

So I did my best to stamp out the rumor. Jumping from post to post and comment thread to comment thread, I frantically played whack-a-mole to aggressively debunk it from spreading.

Needless to say, I was, as usual, completely unsuccessful in this effort. What blew me away, however, is that there were plenty of people who actually wanted to argue with me about it.

People’s devotion to misinformation, once it takes hold, is almost impossible to break. As the old saying goes, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

So the Advisory That Wasn’t continued to be the number-one topic of discussion – and by “discussion” I mean shrieking, wild-eyed panic – for the rest of the afternoon.

The misinformation went so viral, so fast, that the City of Savannah had to issue its own post debunking the rumor. People argued with them, too!

Alderman Nick Palumbo – who I have to say did an admirable, excellent job as a very visible public servant during the whole Helene crisis -- shared the City’s post himself in an effort to tamp down the rumor.

And, you guessed it. People argued with him as well! It was all amazing, and frankly a bit humbling, to watch.

I was almost impressed with how quickly and completely an entire population could be totally, irreversibly convinced of something that isn’t true.

The simple truth is that people are not only susceptible to believing misinformation – many people seem to prefer to believe misinformation, and indeed to seek it out as the more valued commodity!

Still another frantically shared bit of misinformation was the graphic promising that if you called a certain 888 number, the “core of Engineers” would deliver free blue roof tarps to your damaged home.

This was more of a classic Boomer Facebook move, spelling errors and everything, laughably amateurish down to the choice of fonts, and it just didn’t pass the smell test. Why would the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, of all organizations, be the one personally delivering tarps? But that didn’t stop plenty of people from posting.

What’s the harm, you ask? Depends what’s on the other side of that 888 number!

And again, the Corps of Engineers had to make a social media post debunking the misinformation.

I’m sure there were plenty of other examples. This isn’t even getting into independently shared misinformation from random commenters, such as what you’ll see on the heavily-trafficked “weather pages” on Facebook, some of which have fanatical, cultlike followings who have thoroughly toxic parasocial relationships with the person running the page.

(I wrote a column for a former employer detailing the intense cyber-bullying local meteorologist, WTOC's Jamie Ertle, received when a certain weather page decided to turn its zombie loser legions on her during Hurricane Florence in 2018. At one point, her job was in jeopardy through absolutely no fault of her own. Just in case people think I'm being too hard on WTOC. Jamie later thanked me for the piece and said it actually made a difference.)

Following major incidents like Helene, there is usually a laudable desire to engage in after-action reports, whether it's to critique government response or meteorology, or whatever.

Unfortunately, we are less willing to subject ourselves to after-action reports, and ask ourselves honestly how did we sift through available information to make the wisest decisions?

I would humbly suggest that next time – and unfortunately there will be a next time, and a next time after that, and so on – we hold ourselves to the same high standards we hold others, and use some critical thinking skills to get through the crisis intact.