After Hurricane Milton hit Florida with devastating rain and winds in October 2024, social media users recirculated an old video of giant waves inundating streets, falsely claiming the storm surge had resulted from Milton. The clip was originally filmed during Hurricane Ian, which struck the US state in September 2022.
“Actual footage of the onslaught of Hurricane Milton in Florida, USA,” read the Tagalog-language caption of a Facebook reel posted on October 10, 2024.
“Fury of Hurricane Milton in florida USA (sic), Pray for Florida,” said overlaid text on the video.
The 56-second clip shows massive waves lashing palm trees, signs and a house.
Hurricane Milton blasted ashore in Florida on October 9 with strong winds, rain and storm surge, leaving at least 16 people dead and millions without power. Tornadoes, not floodwaters, were behind many of the storm’s deaths, AFP reported (archived link).
Milton made landfall as an “extremely dangerous” Category 3 storm near Siesta Key, in a densely populated area on the state’s western coast, the National Hurricane Center said (archived link).
Similar footage was reshared on Facebook here and here alongside the same claim, garnering about 55,000 views combined.
But the video was filmed during Hurricane Ian in 2022.
Hurricane Ian
AFP has previously debunked posts falsely claiming that the same circulating clip was of Hurricane Helene, which struck Florida in September.
The original footage was published by Max Olson — a self-described “storm chaser” — on YouTube on September 29, 2022 based on Google reverse image searches (archived link).
According to the video’s title, it shows a 15-foot (4.5-metre) high storm surge during Hurricane Ian.
Ian, one of the most powerful storms to hit the United States, flattened whole neighbourhoods and knocked out power lines and bridges as it hit Florida’s southwestern coast in late September 2022 (archived link).
Wind-driven storm surges and immense downpours left even inland neighbourhoods submerged, and dozens of people were killed.
“Our surge probe captured the heartbreaking evolution of a massive storm surge in Ft. Myers Beach, FL,” the YouTube video’s caption read.
Olson posted the “full, unedited” version of the 2022 footage on his YouTube channel in August 2023 (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the false video (left) and the YouTube video from Olson’s account (right):
A review of Olson’s YouTube channel shows a history of uploading witness footage of tornadoes and hurricanes in the United States.
US television news programme Good Morning America and newspaper The Washington Post published the same footage credited to Olson in 2022 (archived links here and here).
AFP geolocated the video to Estero Boulevard in Fort Myers Beach, Florida with the 2022 Google Maps Street View shown below (archived link).
AFP has debunked other falsely circulating videos on Hurricane Milton here, here and here.
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