Controlling Rumors A Vexing Challenge For Storm Officials

GULFPORT, Miss. Sharks swimming the streets of New Orleans. Evacuees eating the remains of chicken washed up on Biloxi beaches. Mosquitoes sucking on corpses and passing incurable diseases in flooded areas.

Among the many challenges presented by Hurricane Katrina, one of the toughest and most important for emergency workers is rumor control. And while officials have struggled to debunk tall tales such as these, others keep coming.

Marie Garner is on the front lines of this battle. Seated in the courthouse, Garner works as an operator with the Harrison County Rumor Control Hot Line, where she and her three colleagues have been fielding several hundred calls a day, many of them about more legitimate concerns than aquatic terror.

"No ma'am, no one is giving out $2,000 checks," she told one caller. "I know there are people saying that, but the debit cards that FEMA was offering are not here just yet."

"The mornings are toughest," Garner added. "That's when there are the most call-in radio shows, and people will say just about anything to be heard on the air."

Many calls to the hot line come from out of state -- from people who escaped the storm and are hoping to discover that what they have heard about the destruction of certain towns is not true. Local people are usually seeking mundane information. "It's a lot of gas station and bank opening questions," she said.

One man said he had heard that the Federal Emergency Management Agency planned to bulldoze the entire southern half of Biloxi; another said he had heard just the opposite, that FEMA was going to let the local authorities handle the situation.

"No one knows yet for sure what is going to get bulldozed," said Brandon Laird, a spokesman for the emergency center here. "But the extremes about all or nothing are not true."

In Louisiana, which does not have a rumor control hot line, police officials face similar challenges.

"It creates a loss of services," said Chief Jeff LeDuff of the Baton Rouge police. "People panic and think they see different things, and we are adversely impacted by that. It creates a lot of work for us."

LeDuff said that in the first two days after Hurricane Katrina's landfall, his department chased down more than 100 rumors. Of them, only one proved to be true.

He said the most vexing stories that he had to discredit were the ones being broadcast over local television and radio, falsely reporting waves of carjackings and hostage situations.

In the bayou town of Thibodaux, 60 miles west of New Orleans, the presence of more than 1,000 evacuees at Nicholls State University has caused quite a stir, prompting high-ranking officials to plead with residents.

"It appears that as a result of the establishment of this shelter, there have been numerous rumors regarding the safety and security of the Thibodaux community," Mayor Charles Caillouet said in a statement. "These rumors claiming looting, robberies, carjacking, takeover of the shelter, lockdown of the city, delays in providing or the shutdown of electrical service, and any crimes of violence are absolutely false."

David Mikkelson, co-founder of snopes.com, a Web site that specializes in investigating rumors circulating on the Web, said that two days before Hurricane Katrina's arrival, e-mail messages began circulating saying that gas stations all along the Eastern Seaboard were going to run out of gas and that several governors were planning to institute rationing.

"People rushed the stations, began hoarding, which meant that stations ran out that wouldn't have," Mikkelson said. "I guess it just shows that these rumors, if they have enough momentum, can become self-fulfilling prophecies."