A video shows hundreds of queueing cars on a flooded road, as desperate families in Florida try to flee Hurricane Milton.
This isn’t what the video depicts. It was filmed two weeks before Hurricane Milton struck, and shows a road in Mumbai, India, after heavy rains caused flooding.
A video is circulating on social media which depicts queueing traffic on a flooded road, together with false claims it shows families trying to escape Hurricane Milton in Florida.
The clip has been shared on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook with the caption: “Florida’s Desperate Escape: Families Stuck as Hurricane Milton Nears.”
It comes as Hurricane Milton, a Category 3 storm at the time it made landfall, brought tornadoes, floods and storm surges to Florida on Wednesday, with authorities reporting four deaths so far.
But the video being shared isn’t related to Hurricane Milton.
A watermark of an Instagram account on the clip leads to a user who posted the same video in higher quality on 25 September, with the caption: “Mumbai Rain.”
It also has text over the video that says: “Western Exp Highway.” The Western Express Highway is a major eight to ten lane road that runs north to south across Mumbai.
Heavy rains in Mumbai at the end of September flooded streets, affected train services and flights, and left at least four people dead.
During major news events we often see videos from other parts of the world being shared with misleading captions. It’s important to consider whether what you are seeing online is genuine and accurate, and our guides to identifying misleading images and videos can help you do this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the video doesn’t show families trying to escape the path of Hurricane Milton in Florida, but of traffic in Mumbai during recent floods.
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