Fact checking falsehoods about FEMA funding and Hurricane Helene

Rumors, misinformation and lies about the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene in the southeastern United States have run rampant since the storm made landfall, especially around funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The claims have become so widespread that FEMA set up a response page to debunk many falsehoods around how disaster funding works and what the agency’s response has been.

As of Sunday, FEMA says it has provided more than $137 million in assistance to six states in the southeast, including 7,000 federal personnel, nearly 15 million meals, 14 million liters of water, 157 generators and more than half a million tarps.

The agency also says more than 3,000 North Carolina residents have been rescued or supported by more than 1,200 urban search and rescue personnel, with recovery efforts aided by National Guard and active duty troops. North Carolina has also received $100 million in federal transportation funds to rebuild roads and bridges washed out by the storm.

Republicans, especially former President Donald Trump, have sought to wield the storm as a political tool against Vice President Harris with less than a month to go before Election Day. Trump has repeatedly attacked Harris and President Biden as doing a “bad job” handling the storm’s aftermath without specifics, instead using misleading math to complain about immigration and foreign aid.

“They’re offering them $750 to people whose homes have been washed away,” Trump said Saturday at a rally in Butler, Pa. “And yet we send tens of billions of dollars to foreign countries that most people have never heard of. They’re offering them $750. They’ve been destroyed. These people have been destroyed.”

The $750 Trump refers to is what’s