The chairman of a House Homeland Security subcommittee is asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency to detail what it did to prepare for Hurricane Helene after it became clear there would be catastrophic flooding.

Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville has added his voice to those leveraging criticism of FEMA’s Hurricane Helene response into presidential-election politics, though some of his points are open to dispute.

The mismatch between coverage and exposure is especially stark in Appalachia, where rainfall – not ocean waves – poses the biggest flooding threat and steep mountainsides funnel rainwater into narrow river valleys, said climate scientist Jeremy Porter at First Street risk consultancy.

The country has rallied around western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene left disaster-struck mountain towns and cities struggling to get the help and resources they need. As local teams have sprung to action,

The White House moved Saturday to quash claims that government officials control the weather, including a far-fetched rumor circulating on social media that Hurricane Helene was an engineered storm to allow corporations to mine regional lithium deposits.

FEMA has faced many obstacles in their relief efforts, among them rumors swirling in wake of the storm, one of them perpetuated by former President Trump.