How could hurricanes impact the election? What we can learn from 5 recent storms

Election season and Atlantic hurricane season always overlap on the calendar. And this year, they’re coming together to form quite the political storm.

First came Helene, which hit Florida as a Category 4 hurricane before drenching a deadly path across several southeastern states. The late September storm killed more than 230 people, flooded entire communities and destroyed critical infrastructure, particularly in hard-hit western North Carolina.

As the road to recovery begins, the federal government’s response has been hampered by considerable politicization and misinformation, mostly online.

While some Republicans have praised the Biden administration’s response, many others — most notably, former President Donald Trump — are seeking to weaponize it against his presidential opponent, Vice President Harris.

On rally stages and social media platforms like X, they have accused local governments of preventing private citizens from helping people in need and alleged that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has no money for hurricane recovery because of spending on migrants and foreign wars (none of these claims are true).

“We absolutely have the funding that we need to support the ongoing response to Helene and the response that we're preparing for Hurricane Milton,” FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell told NPR’s Morning Edition on Tuesday.

She called the misinformation around the storm “absolutely the worst I have ever seen,” telling reporters on a separate call Tuesday that the conspiracy theories — which the agency has set up a webpage to debunk — are dissuading survivors from seeking help and hurting responders’ morale.

Against this backdrop, federal and state authorities are preparing for Hurricane Milton,