Bizarre falsehoods about the federal response to the devastating and deadly storm have spread rapidly on social media in recent days — everything from claims about government manipulation of the weather (not a thing) to rumors about federal agents attempting to seize land in North Carolina for lithium mining (also not a thing).
Echoing false weather-related misinformation recently pushed by far-right figures like former president Donald Trump and sitting Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Broward County School Board member Brenda Fam has unleashed a torrent of bogusness on social media regarding the federal response to Helene.
One article Fam reposted on Facebook on October 7 falsely claims that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is "sitting on billions of unused disaster funds."
Other posts the school board member has shared incorrectly suggest that FEMA funds are being diverted to "illegal immigrants," that Vice President Kamala Harris' husband, Douglas Emhoff, has profited from the hurricane's devastation in North Carolina, and that FEMA workers are withholding and confiscating aid from communities affected by the storm.
One Facebook post shared by the school board member falsely claims that FEMA funds are being diverted to "illegal immigrants."
Screenshot via Facebook
The page responds to several of the false claims Fam has promoted, including rumors about FEMA seizing supplies and falsehoods about money being diverted from disaster-response needs.
"Disinformation of this kind can discourage people from seeking critical assistance when they need it most," the White House wrote in a memo on October 4, according to Reuters. "It is paramount that every leader, whatever their political beliefs, stops spreading this poison."
A lawyer and part-time flight attendant from Davie, Fam is one of nine Broward County School Board members and represents District 6, which encompasses Weston, Sunrise, Plantation, and Davie, among other communities in southwest Broward County.
Fam did not immediately respond to New Times' request for comment.
In a pre-election profile, Fam voiced support for HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education Act (AKA the "Don't Say Gay" bill), which prohibits teachers from discussing sexuality with students in public schools before fourth grade. She claimed in the interview that teachers are indoctrinating students with leftist ideas, consciously and unconsciously.
As New Times previously reported, Fam attended a "Protect the Children" rally in Fort Lauderdale in late 2022 during which protesters, including members of the Proud Boys, stoked age-old phobias about a so-called mass effort to groom children into homosexuality.
Flyers for that event, which was organized in part by the far-right group Moms for Liberty Miami, featured a cartoon of parents holding up an umbrella to shield their children from a rainbow, a symbol of gay pride.
