How Hope Led to Misinformation in Texas
July 7, 2025
When covering disasters like the one in Texas, so sudden, so sad and so terrible, reliable information can sometimes become victim.
The local Sheriff on Sunday talked about social media rumors and misinformation, saying "False information can cause pain to families and those already devastated by this event.”
Case in point was what turned out to be a false report on the popular Facebook page of a volunteer in Austin that rescuers had found two girls alive in a tree two days after the flash flood.
A couple of media outlets passed it along and later retracted it when it was discovered not to be true.
It’s not hard to understand how that can happen. What happened on July 4th in Texas was emotionally devastating and the news about it so terribly painful to take in, with so many children victims of it and with initial hopes turning into hopelessness and human nature being what it is, there was a lot of wanting more news about survival.
But thankfully, there have been a lot of true reports about stories of the survivors and how they clung to trees after being swept down the river sometimes for miles.
And while this tragedy in Texas will linger for some time, the stories of the incredible things first responders and just average citizens did to save people they didn’t even know, and some even sacrificing their own lives to save loved ones…do bring us hope.
(Photo Getty Images)