Thursday morning and afternoon, the center of the massive Hurricane Florence continues to make its way towards the Carolina coasts. Millions have been ordered to evacuate in the face of impending massive storm surge — some though, have chosen to stay behind. FEMA chose to use their communication channels this Thursday to implore those still in Florence’s path to leave, and President Donald Trump amplified their message to his millions of followers and national and global audience.
The FEMA message reads:
‘Storm surge is deadly. Anyone in an evacuation zone in the Carolinas and Virginia must leave NOW if they haven’t yet.’
They reiterated as much in the face of a fluctuating categorization for the storm itself, which reflects the changing wind speeds.
Trump posted that to his Twitter feed not long after going so far down the rabbit hole of his self delusions that he claimed that the nearly 3,000 people estimated to have died from last year’s Hurricane Maria didn’t actually die from the storm. In his estimation, the deaths are fake news — he claims that the Democrats added onto the official death toll in order to make him look bad, pulling info from wherever they could, like Puerto Rican deaths from “old age.”
In fact, the official death toll of nearly 3,000 is the result of a George Washington University study commissioned by Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rossello himself, who — unlike the island’s capital city’s Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz — Trump has actually praised.
In short — the president has little to no place to act as though he’s an authority on hurricanes and their potential impact, and when he does, it’s hardly as though it’s reassuring.
Check out Twitter’s response below.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
