| By Zahra Hirji, Davey Alba, and Jason Leopold 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.” As back-to-back Hurricanes Helene and Milton sparked a torrent of online conspiracies, FEMA officials faced harassment and death threats, according to hundreds of pages of agency emails and other documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by Bloomberg News. The records shed new light on how disaster-related misinformation affects the government's emergency response, sucks up internal resources, and puts staff at risk. Deanne Criswell, who ran FEMA under President Joe Biden, learned about the swatting situation as she was about to brief TV viewers on Milton, one of the most powerful storms on record to develop in the Gulf of Mexico. “It was a very unsettling feeling,” she said in a recent interview, thinking back on how she juggled her concern for her renters along with preparing Floridians for the storm. Many of the attacks outlined in the documents have not previously been reported, including the doxxing of at least seven senior FEMA staffers. In those incidents, sensitive personal information, such as home addresses, was published online for the purpose of harassment. The records also reveal challenges the agency faced as it tried to control the situation. The incidents followed an online wave of disinformation suggesting FEMA was mishandling the response to the hurricanes that pummeled Florida and North Carolina in the lead-up to the presidential election. Among the debunked claims swirling at the time were reports that agency workers had seized property from survivors and confiscated donations. The offensive diverted agency time and resources to set the record straight and protect personnel. “It made my staff nervous,” said Criswell. “It made people in the community nervous. They didn’t know who to believe. They didn’t know who to trust.”
The threat of misinformation continues to loom over the agency at a time when President Donald Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have made steep cuts to its staffing and funding, including pulling back on some of the resources FEMA used last fall to combat threats. In the aftermath of deadly Texas floods in July, for example, conspiracy theories online blamed cloud seeding. Hurricane Helene made landfall in the middle of the night on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 storm, causing historic flooding far inland and killing at least 250 people. Almost immediately, FEMA staff had to confront false rumors circulating online, including that it had stopped accepting housing assistance applications from survivors and didn’t have enough funds to help them. FEMA officials and experts attribute the quick spread of disinformation to historic government mistrust in the area, as well as social media platforms ratcheting back moderation. Publicly, FEMA officials pushed back against disinformation on social media, on the ground with survivors and in the press. The agency also put up a rumor page to debunk the false information. Behind closed doors, meanwhile, its security team monitored for threats, including by hiring cybersecurity firm ZeroFox to identify problematic posts and get social media platforms to take them down, according to emails between the agency and company. For example, the agency shared a screenshot taken from a TruthSocial post from Oct. 5 that stated: “Deanne Criswell needs to be executed for crimes against humanity and treason!” An Oct. 6 post on Gab, a social media site favored by the far right, called for the “Mussolini treatment” of various officials. “The only question: Is there enough rope?” read one of the responses. Jacyln Rothenberg, the agency’s spokesperson at the time, was among the most heavily targeted, leading Homeland Security to loan Customs and Border Protection agents to provide security at her home. “Because the doxxing was so severe and my safety was at risk, I had to stop tweeting,” she said. “I had to stop doing interviews. I had to stop putting myself on the record.” FEMA staff also found what it called “far-right” users posting possible personal information for numerous officials, including Criswell, Coen and Rothenberg, internal documents show. The most high-profile incident involved a man allegedly “hunting” FEMA staff in North Carolina’s disaster zone. On Criswell’s orders, she said in an email to other top Biden officials: “All FEMA staff and contractors working to interact with survivors and conducting housing inspections, as well as search and rescue teams stood down following the initial reports.” Afterwards, FEMA put together a Workplace Protection Task Force involving security, intelligence and communications professionals to manage incoming threats. Protective measures included using specialized software to flag personnel previously targeted online as at risk of more harassment.
But there were limits to how far the government could influence content moderation. At the time, outspoken Republicans led by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan were investigating tech companies, alleging that the platforms were censoring conservative viewpoints under federal government pressure. Read the full story, including how the current political climate is muddying the waters further. Subscribe to get the latest news on the federal government’s disaster response plan. | 
