STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We live in a world where it seems like all the information from all of history is available to us in an instant anywhere, we also live in a world where it's hard to know what to believe. And people in the Los Angeles fire zones face life or death versions of that question. NPR's Shannon Bond reports.
SHANNON BOND, BYLINE: Mike Rothschild (ph) got the order to leave Altadena at 3:25 in the morning last Wednesday.
MIKE ROTHSCHILD: We had already packed some of our stuff because we thought, well, you know, we may have to evacuate. We don't want to be running around in a panic. Spoiler alert, we did run around in a panic.
BOND: Rothschild lost his house in the Eaton Fire. He and his family are trying to figure out what comes next.
ROTHSCHILD: There are so many things that you have to do. You almost don't know where to start, and you're trying to do all of it at once. So I think the biggest issue has been information that maybe doesn't make any sense or is out of date or is coming from unreliable sources.
BOND: That's something Rothschild already knows a lot about. He's an expert on conspiracy theories. And now he's experiencing what it's like to navigate a sea of confusion, rumors, and falsehoods in the middle of a disaster. In a crisis like this one, people have lots of questions and many answers aren't immediately available. That creates an information vacuum says Amber Silver, a professor of emergency management at the University at Albany.
AMBER SILVER: And we know that in information vacuums, misinformation and disinformation tends to fill in that space.
BOND: In LA, officials are trying to fill that vacuum. They're holding daily press conferences and posting social media updates. They're also debunking false claims. Here's LA County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone on Monday, responding to a story that officials refused aid from the New York City Fire Department.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANTHONY MARRONE: I did want to dispel one rumor. The LA County Fire Department has never turned down any offers for mutual aid assistance and resources.
BOND: Even people with good intentions can get things wrong. Rothschild got a message from a community group he trusts in Altadena about FEMA vouchers to cover rental costs. That turned out to be incorrect.
ROTHSCHILD: I'm trying not to believe things that I just sort of hear from other people in Facebook groups or on text chains, while also dealing with people asking me, hey, I heard about this thing going around, is this true or not?
BOND: Another challenge in a disaster, the most useful information is often hyper local, and that can be hard to find. Katie Josiah's (ph) house in Altadena is still standing, but she's on the edge of the evacuation zone. She told NPR's Jonaki Mehta, she's wondering whether it's safe to drink the water.
KATIE JOSIAH: Some places saying, yes, that was only in effect a couple of days ago. And some places saying, no, you should still not drink the water. But you also shouldn't wash dishes in it or you shouldn't bathe in it. You shouldn't do laundry. Just trying to figure out, where do we go? How do we know what to trust?
BOND: Silver says there's often a disconnect between the level of detail public officials can provide in the moment and what people most want to know.
SILVER: In a situation like these wildfires, where they're spreading so fast and there are lots of little pop-up fires and officials are really run ragged, it's difficult, sometimes even impossible, to give information at such a fine scale.
BOND: In the first few days of the fires, Josiah's partner, Zach Bednarke (ph), searched for dates on X - formerly Twitter. But he says it's become cluttered with people posting their opinions and trying to get engagement.
ZACH BEDNARKE: It's been bad to have, like, social media posts that are trying to get likes. You know, so that's polluting my Twitter.
BOND: Like many Angelinos, the couple is now relying on an app called Watch Duty that tracks official updates on the fires and evacuation zones. And crucially, experts verify the information before posting. Shannon Bond, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
