The image circulated on X, including here and here, prior to Hurricane Milton’s landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast on October 9 (archived link).
President Joe Biden had warned the storm could be the worst to hit the state in more than a century as he urged residents in its path to evacuate (archived link).
At least 16 people died and Milton caused an estimated $50 billion in damage – although the storm was milder than initially feared.
But the photo is almost twenty years old. AFP previously debunked similar reports in Arabic that misrepresented the same photo.
Hurricane Rita
A reverse image search found the photo published on the U.S. National Weather Service website in an article about “one of the largest civilian evacuations in U.S. history” as residents fled Houston, Texas ahead of Hurricane Rita in September 2005 (archived link).
“Traffic was at a standstill and record heat exacerbated the problem as cars overheated and stalled on already busy roads,” the article said.
“More people died during the evacuation of Hurricane Rita than directly as a result of the storm itself.”
Below is one screenshot comparison between the incorrectly shared image (left) and the image on the US National Weather Service website (right):
The photo was also shared to a verified National Weather Service X account on September 22, 2016 (archived link).
Rita made landfall on the Texas-Louisiana border on September 24, 2005 with winds of 185 kilometers per hour (115 mph) (archived link).
Ten people were killed in Texas and Mississippi, and another 24 people died during the evacuation of more than three million people from their homes (archived link).
AFP confirmed the photo was taken on Interstate 45 outside Houston by comparing it to Google Maps images of that location (archived link).
AFP has debunked several photos wrongly presented here as Hurricane Milton.
