Hurricane Irma Raining Sharks? No, Dear Internet, Don’t Believe It

MIAMI, FL — When natural disasters like Hurricane Irma strike, the internet is a powerful tool to communicate important, must-know information to millions of people with a few keystrokes. The web has moved disaster response light years ahead. But don’t believe everything you read, including that Irma’s ferocious winds have airlifted sharks that might pelt some hapless Floridian in the head when the storm makes landfall Sunday morning.

The last part is internet jackassery, plain and simple, despite what an image supposedly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggests. The image of the eye of the powerful Category 4 storm is real, but the addition of the ticker fairly screaming “Irma Now Contains Sharks” isn’t. It’s fake news; have you got that? It’s been debunked. Don’t be one of those people who passes the meme along with “omg” — can’t you just hear the breathlessness? — and open-mouthed emoticons, because the same internet that disperses valuable information will mercilessly shame you.

Snopes, a website that debunks urban legends, got the dope on the doctored NOAA image, saying it most likely was a play on the sci-fi film series “Sharknado,” in which dozens of great white sharks are lifted by a tornadic waterspout and deposited elsewhere. (For more hurricane news or local news from Miami, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Miami Patch, and click here to find your local Florida Patch. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

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The image was likely created using a website that can make “wild claims look real,” Snopes wrote, adding later: “Although there have been reports of tornados lifting (and later dropping) various animals, the scenario depicted in the “Sharknado” series, where a tornado causes dozens of great white sharks to rain from the sky, is far-fetched.”

Houston, you don’t have a problem. The National Weather Service warned to “keep your eyes out for fake forecasts.” One of them showed Irma heading toward Houston, ravaged by Hurricane Harvey, swamped for days by more than 50 inches of rain and only days into recovery from the massive storm. That’s just plain-down mean.

Zello won’t help you if internet service is lost. While it’s not a terrible idea to download the app, which basically turns a cellphone into a walkie-talkie, Zello requires an internet connection using either WiFi or a cellular data network. Read the truth from the app makers.

And, finally, Rush Limbaugh was full of hot, tropical air when he dismissed Hurricane Irma as fake news promulgated by the media to whip people into a frenzy, hype climate change and boost ratings — basically, the syndicated radio host said, a big, wet kiss to businesses so they can make money off the supplies people need to survive a hurricane.

“These storms, once they actually hit, are never as strong as they're reported,” he said, adding that “the graphics have been created to make it look like the ocean's having an exorcism, just getting rid of the devil here in the form of this hurricane, this bright red stuff.”

Limbaugh debunked that one himself when he decided to evacuate his tony Palm Beach mansion.

“May as well go ahead and announce this,” he said. “I'm not going to get into details because of the security nature of things, but it turns out that we will not be able to do the program here tomorrow. ... We'll be on the air next week, folks, from parts unknown. So we'll be back on Monday. It's just that tomorrow is going to be problematic. Tomorrow it would be, I think, legally impossible for us to originate the program out of here.”

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Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images News/Getty Images