A video compilation circulating on social media claims to show powerful floods across Florida as a result of Hurricane Milton.
But half of the video’s six clips are not connected to the major storm which hit the US as a Category 3 hurricane on Wednesday 9 October. So far 25 people are reported to have been killed as a result of the weather event.
The compilation has also been circulating on TikTok and YouTube. A version on Facebook has the caption: “Oh my god. Florida is now hit by a severe flood.”
Text on the video reads: “10.10.2024 Florida is now hit by a severe flood.”
But three of the clips in the compilation are not of flooding in Florida on 10 October.
The three other sections of the footage appear to be from a video shared by AccuWeather in a compilation on X, which credits the footage to a photojournalist who posted most of the clips on 9 October, showing the of the El Jobean area of Florida.
In the first 25 seconds of the compilation shared on Facebook, mud and floodwater can be seen surging down a road in front of buildings, and off a steep embankment, pulling a vehicle under a barrier and into a river.
This video isn’t from Florida, or related to Hurricane Milton. It actually shows a flash flood which caused a mudslide in the alpine village of St Anton in Austria in August.
The same video can be seen in a media report of the flooding on YouTube from 19 August.
Footage beginning 36 seconds into the compilation video shows traffic on a city road with high winds and rain. But the video isn’t of Hurricane Milton either; it has been online since at least 28 August, with a caption locating it in Chicago, Illinois.
We used geolocation tools to match the same spot in the video with the La Salle Street Bridge in Chicago. The city was hit by storms and heavy rains in August.
The last clip in the video, from 52 seconds, shows waves crashing up a beach to houses on the shore.
While we cannot confirm where the clip originates from, it has been circulating online since at least 27 September, pre-dating Hurricane Milton making landfall in Florida on 9 October.
One version on TikTok, which is an uncropped view of the same beach scene, has the hallmarks of being created or modified with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
From around three seconds in, an unnatural-looking wave appears to be seen crashing down a set of stairs on a house set a street back from the beach, before the ocean even reaches the beachfront homes.
We have seen a number of videos of different weather events being shared with misleading claims they show the impact of hurricanes in the US.
Before sharing content on social media it’s important to consider whether what you are seeing really shows what it claims to. Our guides to spotting misleading images, videos and AI-generated content can help you do this.