Panic over an imaginary “FEMA Hunt” militia has done more damage than the real threat

It was a horrifying report. As North Carolinians reeled from Hurricane Helene, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) abruptly ordered emergency workers to “withdraw and evacuate” Rutherford County due to reports of “armed militia trucks who say they’re on the FEMA hunt.” The Washington Post reported on Oct. 13, based on an email obtained from the U.S. Forest Service.

The threat turned out to be somewhat less serious. On Oct. 14, the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of a man, William Jacob Parsons, for making a “comment about possible injury to FEMA employees” while armed with an assault rifle. Law enforcement concluded that “Parsons acted alone and there were no police trucks,” according to a statement quoted in The Washington Post.

Parsons said the BBC that he was not a member of any militia, had not threatened any federal officials, and was there to help distribute supplies to hurricane victims.

Every time America suffers a natural disaster, it seems, there is great anxiety about social collapse and mass violence. And the media often runs with the most fantastical version, as the journalists did reports of violence at the Superdome refugee center after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

These rumors in themselves can cause serious damage. Louisiana National Guard, Major Ed Bush said Reason in 2005 that “maybe FEMA would have been faster if we hadn’t heard all these urban myths about shootings and rapes and deaths and murders and bodies everywhere.” Last week, relief efforts in Rutherford County and nearby Ashe County were off because of the alleged militia threat.

Through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Reason got the original email thread about the threat. Forest Service fire official Gordy Sachs, citing a message from FEMA, did write to other officials on October 12 that “Title 10 troops ran over x2 armed militia trucks saying they were on a FEMA hunt” . (Both federal troops and national guards under federal command are referred to under “Title 10 commands.”)

The Forest Service struggled to figure out what was really going on. “Are you aware of this? Are we involved? Any updates to share?” Tracy Perry, director of law enforcement and investigations, wrote in an email to subordinates. “This is the first I’ve heard of this, I spoke to some LE (policy) staff around 11:30 this morning and they didn’t mention anything,” wrote one official, whose name and title have been redacted.

By that afternoon, officials had learned the real story. An acting Forest Service patrol commander, whose name has been redacted, responded to the email thread at 6:52 p.m. with a screenshot of a bulletin asking police to track down a man who “made threats to FEMA and anyone he got in his way” and a photo of someone who appears to be Parsons.

“This has a high probability of (being) the previous (unconfirmed) threat,” the patrol commander wrote. The commander followed up 20 minutes later to write that “the suspect is in custody.”

Only the original email talking about “armed militia trucks” was leaked to the media. The Washington Post reported on the alleged threat on the afternoon of October 13, apparently unaware that a suspect had been identified. “Two federal officials confirmed the authenticity of the email, although it was unclear whether the threat cited was deemed credible,” Post reported.

After Parsons’ arrest was made public, Post updated his story to focus on its alleged threat and removed the phrase “armed militia” from the title. As it turns out, American soldiers HAD called in the threat — after hearing about it secondhand from a gas station cashier. “This was a lone individual,” Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office Capt. James Keever told them Post. “We’re trying to get the word out about it.”

But other news outlets had already started running with the story. “Trump’s hurricane lies pose dire threat”, The New Republic he statedblaming former President Donald Trump criticism of FEMA for the alleged militia threat. In his own coverage of the militia threat, The Guardian reported that the “politicization” of the hurricane relief effort “provided a recruiting opportunity for the white supremacist groups that gathered in the devastated regions.” The daily beast presented a photo of a the actual militia above its cover.

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) said. NBC News that two North Carolina counties were reporting “various militias attacking and threatening FEMA.”

On the ground, the picture looked quite different. People mostly stepped in to help each other and their communities. Voluntary aid organizations supplies distributed in North Carolina and neighboring states. Reason witnessed a militia-like operation near Asheville, but instead of attacking aid workers, “redneck air force” it was cooperating with the authorities to conduct helicopter flights to isolated towns.

And rather than a terrible plague of misinformation, at least one local official sees the anti-FEMA conspiracy theories as mostly an annoyance.

“As far as I know, rumors on social media have not affected the response. They tend to be a distraction, but my concern was that people might stop helping if they felt their efforts were being undermined. That didn’t happen.” Glenn Jacobs, mayor of Knox County, Tenn., said Reason. Jacobs says the recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene “it showed once again how local communities come together to help their neighbors even before the government is mobilized. I’ve seen a lot about it.”