Chaos inside FEMA as death threats distract from hurricane response

FEMA officials faced death threats, doxxing and swatting attacks during Hurricane Helene and Milton response as online conspiracy theories spread.

The Trump administration has cut FEMA resources previously used to combat threats, raising concerns about future emergency response capacity.

As a major storm rushed toward Florida last October, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency at the time faced a different kind of threat. Police had shown up in force to a rental property she owned as a result of a prank call, in a potentially dangerous attack known as “swatting.”

Back-to-back Hurricanes Helene and Milton had sparked a torrent of online conspiracies, with FEMA officials facing harassment and death threats, according to hundreds of pages of agency emails and other documents