In the United States, federal rescuers working in areas of North Carolina affected by Hurricane Helen stopped working and left due to warnings about the threat of “armed militias,” writes the Washington Post.
This happened on the afternoon of Saturday, October 12. A representative of the US Forest Service, which assists the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), sends an urgent message to federal agencies.
He said the National Guard had detected “two truckloads of armed militiamen who said they were pursuing FEMA” and advised “all federal emergency responders in Rutherford County, North Carolina, to stop working and immediately evacuate the county”.
Rescuers moved to a safe area and suspended some work in the affected area, including clearing roads of fallen trees, which is necessary for search and rescue teams and trucks delivering food. By noon the next day, October 13, all staff had returned to their places.
FEMA is a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that coordinates efforts to prevent and respond to disasters that local authorities cannot handle.
The Washington Post previously reported that emergency management officials encountered anti-Semitism and hostility over conspiracy theories at hurricane relief sites. The reason was publications in X in which officials of Jewish origin were accused of conspiring to organize disasters, looting and trying to interfere with reconstruction.
FEMA has debunked some of the rumors on its website and clarified other misleading information. The North Carolina Department of Public Safety highlighted that federal employees are working around the clock to save lives.
One of the centers of tension was the town of Chimney Rock in Rutherford County. There, a rumor spread that government officials planned to enter the hurricane-devastated settlement and hide the bodies under the rubble. According to WP, this conspiracy theory was refuted by local authorities and the media, but calls still appeared on social media to form a militia and oppose FEMA’s plans.
Now FEMA is acting with great caution, and groups of employees of this agency now operate in clearly defined places and only in territory recognized as safe, contrary to the established practice of going door to door, a source close to the agency told the publication. .
Residents in affected areas began harassing federal employees, a Forest Service employee told the newspaper. Reva Duncan. He described incidents in which local residents shouted at department officials delivering aid or performing repair work: “We don’t need your help here.” A Forest Service employee was yelled at at a gas station: “We don’t want the government here.”
“It’s terrible because a lot of these people who need support are turning it away because of believing what people say about FEMA and the government. And it’s sad because they’re probably the ones who need the most help.” – Duncan summarized.
Helen is a Category 4 hurricane that hit the southeastern United States in late September. Across western North Carolina, communities were destroyed and communications, power and water supplies were disrupted. More than 250 people died.
According to the National Hurricane Center, Helen is the deadliest tropical cyclone to hit the continental United States since 2005, when Hurricane Katrina killed 1,400 people.
